KATHERINE MACALISTER finds Isy Suttie relishes her workload.

Isy Suttie’s tour means she has no social life to speak of and no spare time, but apart from feeling guilty about never seeing her friends she’s happy as Larry.

And with a national tour in the offing and Peep Show to film, she’s got no one to blame but herself. “It takes different kinds of energy to do both,” she agrees. “It’s nice to work in a team when filming but it’s good to do my own stuff on stage as well. I just have to remember to eat my fruit and vegetables.”

Luck has little to do with a comedian’s success, hard work and bloody-mindedness are much more important, and when things get tough Isy just has to remember how hard she’s worked to get where she is. “When get up at 5.45am for a day’s filming, I just have to think back to when I was paying to do gigs while working in Oddbins during the day, surviving on three or four hours’ sleep a night, and remind myself this is what I’ve always wanted. Because I love doing stand-up. But I am jealous of my friends who have regular lives and kids.”

Question her more closely though and Isy admits that a family is way down the line on her ‘to-do’ list. “I have a boyfriend who’s fantastic and we work hard at seeing each other even if it means driving home at 11.30pm after a gig. And I don’t feel as if I should be having kids yet. But I do find that there are less people around in the evenings now when I want to go out and get drunk.”

Instead Isy’s babies are still her songs, which form a vital and distinctive part of her act. “I cannot imagine doing comedy without music. Having said that I did force myself to do stand-up for a year until I realised it was a cop out without the songs which I like doing best and have done since I was 12, especially when they come out fully formed – a bit like a baby.”

As for the show at The Theatre Chipping Norton tomorrow night, Isy, 32, says it’s set in a supermarket with Isy playing all the characters from Lisa at the checkout to her fairy godmother and Carl the passive shelf stacker. “It’s a cross between a pantomime and an indie concert,” she says. Unlike those comedians who admit their desire to make people laugh stems from being bullied at school, Isy says it’s innate. “I was funny at school and liked larking about and making people laugh. But my comedy doesn’t come from any feelings of inadequacy necessarily. Both my parents were very funny.”

Material-wise, Isy isn’t a people watcher; instead she comes up with an idea and works on it. “I have a love/hate relationship with the internet so that I’m tapping away rather than going out for a walk or meeting friends. So I wrote a recent sketch about two people who meet up on Facebook but when they eventually get together have nothing to say to each other.”

Isy still confesses to being horrendously nervous before gigs. “I can’t do anything and can’t relax until its over,” she says, “and then I just want to go out and drink,” she laughs again. “But when I get angry I try to turn it into something positive by writing a song and I try not to think about the future because otherwise I would worry.”

* Isy Suttie is at The Theatre Chipping Norton with Rob Deering tomorrow, Friday (01608 642350), then October 9 at The Cornerstone, Didcot (01235 515144); October 11 The Cellar, Oxford (07782 195543); and October 20 Glee, Oxford (0871 4720400).