"And my brother still doesn't think I've got a proper job!" laughs Jason, an overnight success who's taken ten years to get there.

Behind the current TV exposure lie years of hard work for Jason who performs at Brighton's Corn Exchange on Saturday October 11.

"I wouldn't know how to give any tips, but I just started because I was working in a comedy club (in Manchester), just collecting glasses. And then I was gradually watching the acts every week and thinking 'that's a laugh'.

"One night a couple of acts didn't turn up, and I decided to have a go. I said I could fill in for ten, and I went. It went alright. It was a lovely club with a lovely audience. And I just cracked on. I entered the North West Comedian of the Year completion, and I won. That was 99 – two years after Peter Kay had won."

And Jason's career took off. He's not in the Peter Kay superstar bracket, he stresses, but it's a Peter Kay style of humour. There was a 14-year-old in his audience the other night, and that's fine by Jason, provided the youngsters realise that it is basically directed at the adults.

"You can get criticised for it, people saying it is a very safe kind of comedy, that it is not edgy enough. But if everyone was on the edge, we would all fall off. I am happy to be in the middle. I am happy to be anywhere! But it is not like I am super-safe, super-nice like you'd get in Christian comedy."

On stage Jason talks about all sorts of things, about football and about his wife who unwittingly feeds him some good lines.

"She's always coming out with stuff and I say 'Right, that's going in the show!' As soon as she says it, she says 'Oh no!'"

For instance?

"Last night we were going through our diaries. We are married now. That's what we do in bed. I said to her 'In October I am doing The Secret Policeman's Ball'. She said 'Oh… is it alright for me to tell people?" I said 'What!'"