He has Dutch ancestry but Addy Van Der Borgh’s comic references are from the English-speaking world.

The Londoner cites Monty Python and Eddie Izzard as touchstones. Louis CK, the American whose new show on Sky Atlantic is being talked about as a comedy milestone, is another.

Borgh, whose grandfather was Dutch, was one of the lucky few who caught the New Yorker in London a few weeks ago.

“It’s the confessional thing,” he says. “He can be incredibly truthful and dark but he has such a lot of natural charm.

“He has humanity and he writes so brilliantly that he always gets the point across.”

Borgh says Louis CK is a reminder for all comedians of the importance of good writing.

“I think some comics forget that, apart from confidence and natural comic ability, the best comics are good writers who get the point across clearly and with charm.

“Whatever subject you are going to talk about you have to do it truthfully and not flinch.

“If you are a Michael Mcintyre-type, you know, ‘Ooh look at that there’, observing something we’ve all noticed, then that is straightforward and difficult to mess up – even though it is not easy to do it as well as he does.

“Whereas if you look at what Louis CK does you could make a right mess of it. It’s complex. It’s got to be done right.”

Borgh has been on the circuit for 15 years and it wasn’t until he was in his late 20s that he made the trade his main source of income.

He has been on BBC One’s Stand-up Show, Sky TV’s The World Stands Up, Live At Jongleurs, Radio 4’s Loose Ends and in BBC Three series Brain Candy, by Baby Cow Productions.

The former van driver has done short courses in clowning and physical theatre.

“I loved Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, and that the clowning element is in what I do as well.

“The other great influence is Richard Pryor, who was a great observational comic and a kind of confessional comic. I loved the way he would physicalise his stand-up.”

Borgh likes to takes simple ideas on flights of fancy.

“What I’m doing now, rather than the obvious physical thing, taking more written, intellectual things, expanding things, such as a routine about the word endeavour being used on a gas man’s calling card, saying, ‘I will endeavour to return’, for example.” Addy Time is Borgh’s follow-up to Advanced Mumbo Jumbo.

“It’s quite self-depreciating,” he adds. “I never like comics who go round taking the piss out of everything else but can never look at themselves. I always like comics who identify and expose their fallings.

“It’s more interesting than going, ‘Ooh look at that, that’s s***’. Or saying that the trains are always late, or aeroplanes are uncomfortable.

“George Carlin, he was a bit like that, he never made out he was perfect. You would watch him – and I saw him in Las Vegas a few years ago – and he could definitely expose his vulnerability on stage.

“That is key, you have to allow yourself to be vulnerable.”

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