1. Having made a steady name for himself with shows such as Skylarking, Adventures and Wandering, to become an Edinburgh Fringe staple, the Bristolian comic announced last year that he would no longer be doing the August sweatboxes. He felt bad at the prospect of selling out a large theatre over the course of a month while his comedy pals were struggling in the smaller venues: 'stealing from my mates' is how he described it.
2. Instead, Howard will use this summer to record the pilot episode for BBC3 first's topical comedy show. The Beeb3 bosses want him as he's dead popular with that channel's young fanbase.
3. Having dabbled with writing jokes and thinking about doing stand-up, he was inspired to plunge headlong into the comedy world when a guy he knew at school died in a car crash at the age of 18. Life, Howard rightly deemed, was just too short.
4. Howard studied economics at Bristol Uni but got away from numbers as quickly as he possibly could.
5. The show he is touring now, Dingledodies, takes its name from a line in Jack Kerouac's On the Road, which describes 'the mad ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing.'

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow, Thu 18 Jun.