Katherine MacAlister talks to comedian Russell Kane about how his outlook on life led to his new show

I’d heard that Russell Kane was difficult, a young pretender, more Russell Brand than Russell Howard, and therefore a nightmare to interview.

But he couldn’t have been nicer, chattier, cheerier or more forthcoming, just proving that you should never listen to rumours.

So does he care what people think of him?

“I think that after I split up with my girlfriend and reinvented myself, going around wearing eye make-up and stuff, people might have got the wrong idea about me and thought I was trying to be younger than I actually was, and that my humour would follow,” he says.

“I had no idea that’s what they were thinking, so I decided to make a show out of it – about how you can never be the right age.

“And yet all that changed was what I was wearing and my hair, so Right Man, Wrong Age is about having to grow up and be more manly.

“It’s a tight premise but one that has got me this far” he laughs. “That and my edge and energy, my style of performance, because I’ve still got a mad brain and it gets worse, I’m more fanatic than ever. I’ll be firing bullets out of my ass by the time I finish. But then they say that you don’t peak until you’ve been in the business for seven to 11 years. It takes a long time.”

This Essex-boy-come-good – who went to university and ended up in advertising, Googled comedy and then just turned up for a stand-up gig at the Comedy Cafe which he found online – still writes his shows by jotting ideas down on a piece of A4 paper and then trying them out on a live audience. He obviously likes flying by the seat of his pants.

Or does he? Because with a new wife Lindsay and baby, and a show about growing up, maybe Russell Kane has finally found the security he’s been looking for all his life.

So did he take some time off?

“Well you’d like to think so. And I had planned to. It was an October baby so I kept October to February free and then this survival series came up, where they wanted me to visit the most mental place on earth armed only with a smartphone and a social media star to see if we survived.

“So in the end I only had two-and-a-half weeks at home, which is more than some I suppose. Lindsay was very supportive and said I had to do it and I went to some of the most amazing places on earth – a desert island in Costa Rica, a Soviet ghost town, the Arctic circle, the Dolomites and North Africa.”

The results will be aired in the summer on the BBC and then worldwide.

So how did they know Russell was the right man for the job?

“They sent me to Epping Forest to forage with people like Caspar Lee from YouTube.

“But to be honest the programme was everything I didn’t want to be. I was trying to grow up not doing smartphones and social media with the kids, but apparently they really wanted it to be me. So I had to man up. I’m glad I did it.

“And it was good to branch out. I think people are over panel shows and this way I have the stage to myself and a whole new generation of viewers, but it was mentally and physically challenging, even though I’m generally fit.”

So what was the hardest bit?

“The desert island. They just threw us off a boat and we had to swim to the island with a pack, without any idea what is in it. And there were no toilets. I won’t go into details but I’ve had to learn some new skills apart from how to Google in the dessert.

“On another one trip I went away with Arron Crascall, No.1 on Facebook. Put it this way, I got 60,000 views for a four-minute comedy sketch but he got 23 million watching him sing.

“Anyway, we went to Morocco on a camel trip, and the medics did have to get involved. It was messy,” he laughs, seemingly unaware that for the entire interview he has showed no signs of growing up at all, for which we are eternally grateful.

Russell Kane brings Right Man, Wrong Age to the Oxford Playhouse on Monday. For tickets call 01865 305305 or go to oxfordplayhouse.com