The arrival of a new baby gives us a sense of our mortality and reminds us we all share one certainty in life: growing old.

Bristolian comic Mark Watson’s first-born arrived in January and it’s put him in pensive mood.

“I’m just trying to embrace the bigger themes of life,” he says of his latest show, Do I Know You?

“What’s the point of life? What is the relationship is between you and the rest of the world? It’s about how one person fits into the world because there are so many people and it’s so hard to stand out.

“To be one person among many really interests me. I’ve tried to explore that while still making the show fun.”

If becoming a dad has changed his outlook, so has turning 30, which came only a month after his son was born.

“Those questions are sort of inevitable because as you get older and you become a parent, you see your life in a different context. You see it as one life in a procession of lives, the progression of generations. That kind of thing plays on my mind far more than when I was 22 or 23.”

He says it’s only having a child that makes you realise you are no longer bottom of the pile. It’s made the show more personal – which means the audience leave feeling they’ve really got to know the performer rather than just being bombarded with jokes.

That’s not at the expense of jokes, he clarifies, but if you know Watson – a comic who has hosted Never Mind The Buzzcocks, been a panellist on Have I Got News For You, written for Radio 4 and has three novels in shops – you might be surprised by his new-found positivity. A resolution, published in The Guardian recently, outlined his aim to turn over a new leaf.

By 40 he wants to have had a complete personality overhaul, “to be a sunny, confident individual, unrecognisable from the carping sourpuss who muttered his way reluctantly through the past couple of decades”.

As for passing on traits to his young son, he hopes to leave as little a mark as possible.

“I can be quite neurotic and a bit of a worrier and I certainly wouldn’t wish that on him,” he says. “It’s very hard to know if he’ll have that transmitted through genes or through behaviour or whether you just end up like that.

“I’d definitely like my kids to be easier going than me. Over-worrying doesn’t do anyone a lot of good. Being sensitive and highly-strung, even a bit neurotic, can be good traits for anyone who is a performer or an artist, but as a personality trait it is not very attractive.”

Speaking of the highly-strung, Watson was contestant on Marco Pierre White’s Kitchen Burnout in April, but lasted only three days.

It was a life lesson to never work in a kitchen.

“My main impression was that you’d be mad to work in a kitchen. Being a comedian is high pressure but at least you are on your own doing your own thing, not wearing whites or sweating quite as much as that.

“I’ve got a lot of respect for anyone who works in a restaurant, but it’s respect mingled with disbelief they would want to do it.”

He says Marco was fond of him because he was hopeless.

“He didn’t shout and swear like Gordon Ramsay – I don’t think I’d have done it if he was. Life’s too short to be yelled at by people."

Starts 8pm, tickets cost £16.50. Call 01273 709709