When comics make their Fringe debuts, many of them are hell-bent on working up the biggest theme their minds and mouths can maintain over the course of an hour. Not such manufactured tosh for a guy like Kevin Bridges, the latest in a long line of great young Scottish stand-up hopes. For his August assault An Hour to Sing for Your Soul (at the Pleasance Dome from 5 August), the focus will be firmly on one thing: telling gags. ‘Daniel Kitson is the pioneer of themed shows and if it’s done right, then it’s great. But you get people going to the Edinburgh Festival trying to just make a theme: “I stood in dogshit and it changed my life” and that kind of thing. You see too many guys who are just stand-up comedians pretending that they want to be taken seriously.’

This Clydebank comic has certainly been taken seriously for many years now, with an experience which belies his mere 22 years on this planet. Having made his stage debut aged 17, joking about being able to have sex but not watch a porno and make drunks laugh but not get a pint himself. ‘I was just speaking about what I knew, so it was natural, I wasn’t another guy trying to be Bill Hicks. Obviously you grow as a comedian but I think I’ve kept that essence right through.’ An appearance on the box in the recent Michael McIntyre Comedy Roadshow has certainly furthered his stock and he shouldn’t have cause to burden himself with the Fringe debutant’s classic worry. ‘I’m pretty static on stage but I’m sure if there are 14 Norwegians in a room just staring at me, there’d be some sweat.’

Jongleurs, Edinburgh, Fri 24 & Sat 25 Jul