If you don't recognise Tom Bell as the tall, geeky one from the “Choo Choo Choo” Trainline adverts, you might have seen him down your local Quasar.

The day we speak he’s just finished his monthly session with his actor pals (they’re mostly out of work, he confesses).

He’s bubbling with excitement, like a child who never grew up, because it’s two games for £6 on Tuesdays.

“That means we get four games in for £12 and we’re the only people there so we can play our own music.

"We have a rule that if Chariots Of Fire comes on, it’s slow motion. If John Lennon’s War plays, everyone has to put their guns down and hug.”

The brilliance doesn’t stop there.

“We have a traitor on each side who has to secretly kill his own team. We’re currently debriefing in the pub.”

Aside from showing Bell’s creative side, the Quasar reveals more.

“I do fancy myself as a bit of an action hero,” he says.

It’s the reason he has decided to write his biggest solo show to date, previewing in Brighton before heading to the Edinburgh Festival, as a Hollywood reboot spoof starring himself.

“The principal is a gritty reimaging of my own life with the Dark Knight soundtrack playing.

“I play various characters who have wronged me. It is big and silly. There is even an ad break.”

The Nottingham-born comic is also a published short story writer. He is an occasional actor, as well as the Trainline ad-man, and was recently the face for a Norwegian pizza company.

He got his break four years ago performing as one half of stand-up sketch duo Tommy And The Weeks, who have since had three successful Edinburgh runs and piloted a show for Channel 4.

So when his partner, Ed Weeks, decided to head to LA to try his hand writing cop dramas, Bell thought he should try his own reinvention.

“My life isn’t very dramatic so it’s re-imagining it as very dramatic.

“I have this aggressive misogynistic character I do. I imagine myself as an adventurer, Indiana Jones style, trying to open a bank account.

“In the past people have accused me of being too whimsical so part of it is very dark, to prove my dark side.”

The movie nerd loves the music and drama of reboot films such as Batman Begins and the latest Star Trek film but is worried about what might happen to Quantum Leap if the rumours of a remake are true.

“The key is to take the camp original that everybody loves then ramp up the intrigue.”

Problems arise, he says, when Hollywood becomes obsessed with showing off its budget at the expense of dialogue and plot. But Bell needn’t worry about that dilemma – he is building his own set and painting its cityscape.

To prepare for the role the Albion fan (his father was born in Worthing) has spent the last few years cultivating a superhero-style existence.

Of course there is the regular Quasar, but he also runs everywhere, keeps different countries’ banknotes in his wallet and has even cultivated a nemesis – a friend who he still vows to kill every time he sees him.

“I style myself on Liam Neeson in Taken – he is a normal guy but he has been taken and he has to do it.

“Or Cary Grant in North By North West – an everyman who rose to the occasion.”

He admits he has some way to go before he becomes a true hero.

“I’m not a big franchise and you can’t really reboot oneself,” he jokes.

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