Alan Carr once told The Guide he had spent so long on the road he could do four hours of material about service station pasties.

For his new Anarchist Cook show, Brighton-based comic George Egg is combining 20 years of tales of food on the road with his own DIY cooking demonstration.

The show was inspired by a YouTube video Egg made in 2006 under the title Hotel Survival which went viral, getting more than 120,000 hits.

The cult favourite saw him create tortellini and muffins using just the equipment he found in his hotel room.

“When you come out of a comedy gig at night, your choices are fast food or hotel standard food,” says Egg.

“I realised you could boil an egg in a kettle without harming it, or toast bread under an iron.

“Making something more nutritious and healthy makes you feel better on the road. Fast food can be like a one-night stand – seeing an empty pizza box at the other end of the bed the next morning and picking the cheese off the cardboard...”

So began a long research and development process, which saw Egg buying up trouser presses and mini-bar fridges to see what he could come up with.

The Anarchist Cook show follows a long love of cookery, with Egg launching his own culinary blog, Mealmen, alongside photographer Matthew Lincoln from Bradford-upon-Avon, as fathers cooking for teenagers in their homes.

“I find it hard going to restaurants without thinking I could have done this at home,” admits Egg, who began his career as a stand-up at the age of 19.

He began incorporating food into his comedy at the suggestion of fellow comic Robin Ince to try something new, having appeared in Ince’s Christmas show Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People over the past three years.

“I did a preview at Northampton making three dishes which were laid out on a table at the end,” says Egg. “When the show was over everyone was around the table trying the stuff. It was so rewarding!”

Not that this has gone down well with everyone – with one London technical manager refusing to let the audience sample the dishes blaming health and safety legislation.

“If we look into it legally, we are probably breaking some rules,” admits Egg. “Part of the anarchism is about common sense, people who think like a human rather than a machine.”

The show links in with the rise of so-called food porn on television ratings winners MasterChef and The Great British Bake Off.

Egg feels his show plays into this but also links into the self-sufficiency movement.

“It’s foraging in an urban environment,” he says.

“There are bits in the show where I have to break off from the story to blend some ingredients, and bits where I’m getting stressed, but I haven't burnt anything yet.

“The only disasters have been in my own head. The first time I did sea bass I poached it too long and it was slightly overdone...”

  • George Egg also appears in Robin Ince’s Dirty Book Club, at Upstairs At Three And Ten, on Tuesday, May 13, from 8pm; at Bom-Banes Music Cafe in George Street, Brighton, with Joanna Neary on Friday, May 23, from 7pm; and as part of the BOAT Benefit Zincbar at the Spiegeltent, in Steine Gardens, on Friday, May 23, from 9pm.