Probably the most basic piece of careers advice is to think about something you enjoy doing as a hobby, and then find a job where you can do it for money.

For sketch comedian and radio scriptwriter Tim Key poetry certainly fitted that bill.

“In terms of other writing jobs there is so much discipline required,” he says. “There’s a certain way of writing radio drama, and I always saw poetry as an antidote to that.”

After Edinburgh Festival Fringe outings with the sketch group Cowards and the Cambridge Footlights alongside his friend Mark Watson, it was poetry that formed the basis of Key’s first solo Edinburgh show, 2007’s The Slut In The Hut.

“Performing poetry quickly became something I really enjoyed doing,” he says.

“It has that association for me of being more of a hobby than a job, which I think is probably quite healthy.”

Its follow-up, The Slutcracker, earned him the 2009 Edinburgh Comedy Award.

Two years prior to the award his unique shambling performance style, and eye for unusual subject matter – such as a man swapping his car for a loaf of bread or a misunderstanding at a supermarket checkout – had caught the eye of the producer behind Screenwipe, Charlie Brooker’s satirical swipe at television.

Following poems attacking Deal Or No Deal, The Topical Poetry Of Tim Key is now a regular feature on Screenwipe’s current affairs-based successor Newswipe. Subjects have included the Christmas Bomber’s inner monologue, a “horrible banker figure” getting his just desserts, and Barack Obama restoring sight to Gordon Brown’s lost eye, stating, “It’s what I do”.

“It’s very flattering to be asked to do a show you watch,” he says. “I know there’s a new series around the corner, so as soon as I get an email about it I will reply straight away.”

He admits writing commissioned topical poems is a very different process.

“They will give me topics and themes so I work in a slightly more structured way,” he says. “You have to be a bit more professional but I try to keep the poems as true to what I do normally.

“If you were asked to write a story at school it was difficult to know where to start, but if you were asked to write a story about a horse dying, for example, you could work out how the horse died, whose horse it was, it makes it all a little easier.”

While Key’s first Edinburgh show was a sort of “greatest hits” compilation of material he had written up to that point, he relished the challenge of creating something new from scratch for its follow- up The Slutcracker.

“There’s always a little bit of variety,”

he says. “I will throw in a shopping list or a bit of nonsense. There’s a little bit of light and shade in writing a show, it should feel like a show rather than the best bits of what you’ve written recently.”

Part of creating The Slutcracker was also re-examining the music he played to accompany his readings.

“I’m quite anal about things like that,”

he says. “After the first show I got rid of all the music. There was Soviet lounge music, classical stuff and a little bit of Russian rock.”

His discovery of Soviet easy listening came from dinner with a friend who worked at a record label.

“She had this CD of awful, loud and offensive music, which she thought I might like,” says Key. “I’ve used it ever since.”

Key employed a live string quartet to soundtrack his first album however, which was released on limited-edition vinyl by Invisible Dot.

“I thought it would be nice to do a live album in front of a small audience,” says Key. “They thought it would be better to do it on a boat with a string quartet.

“It was quite stressful, as there was no money to make it – it was one of those projects which might not have worked. We just had to see what we had at the end.”

The album is now going to get an outing on CD.

“The plan is to be really merchandise heavy,” says Key. “Management have decided that’s the way to do things.”

Not that it seems to bother Key. You get the sense he’s happiest in a café stringing words together with his well-thumbed notebook on his knee.

*Starts 7.30pm and 9.30pm, tickets £10.50. Call 01273 709709.