FEW comedians would use a stand-up show to clear the name of Yoko Ono, repeatedly sing a Kettering Town FC chant or reveal their true identity as an undercover cop. But then James Acaster isn’t like most comics. We chat to the 31-year-old about living it large in Germany and Mock The Week ahead of his visit to the Arts Centre

Reset is your sixth solo tour. How do you find the touring lifestyle?

It's all right! The main reason I got into stand-up was because I wanted to tour solo shows in theatres. When I was a teenager I remember saying to my drama teacher that if I couldn't be in a band I was just going to travel around Great Britain in a van. He called me an idiot, but I had a vision of myself walking through a service station car park and for some reason thought that’d be so cool. You can get a bit lonely on tour, but I quite like service stations.

Kettering has become a big part of your stand-up. Is the town intrinsic to your shtick?

I don’t know why Kettering is the thing I want to talk about, but there’s something about it. When I started comedy, I’d look around and go: what makes me different from other people? And no other comedians come from Kettering!

You’ve also made an online travel mockumentary about Kettering, Sweet Home Ketteringa. For the second series you travelled to Kettering’s German twin town, Lahnstein. Did you have any problems out there?

We got very lucky with the people we met, and if that hadn’t have happened we would’ve been in a bit of trouble. The storyline was meant to be building up to the Lahnstein carnival. We thought it would be this amazing, happy carnival that could be the big finale. But it was so depressing, bleak and rainy that we had to take the storyline in a different direction.

You bankrolled the second series by crowdfunding. Were you surprised by how many strangers were willing to finance it?

Yeah! I thought we’d be lucky to get anything. I was really encouraged by that. We felt like we owed it to them to do as good a job as we could and not just play it safe. We owed it to them to risk it being shit, almost.

On TV you’ve become a semi-regular on Mock the Week. The show used to have a reputation for being quite aggressive. Has that changed?

That’s over now. When I did my first episode, I went there with invisible knuckledusters on, going, “Bring it!” But everyone was so great. Dara doesn't let you flounce – if you throw something out there he doesn't just watch it drop and move on.

James Acaster's show at the Arts Centre on November 5 is sold out. For future dates go to www.jamesacaster.com.