When Newcastle comic Gavin Webster brought his show to the Fringe in August, news broke that you imagine would have had him rubbing his hands. Asterisked-up to the max, the provocatively titled All Young People Are C**ts was made heavily topical when the summer riots hit the headlines. ‘People said I bet that was brilliant for your show as I could have just gone out on stage and said I told you so. But my show was the polar opposite of that because young people don’t make their feelings known enough.’

While Webster does actually have plenty time for the younger generation, believing that they have too much information at their fingertips thanks to Google and co, he still can’t understand one aspect of modern culture. ‘Liking William Shatner, David Hasselhoff and Alan Titchmarsh because they are rubbish? I can’t get my head round all that. We couldn’t afford to be ironic in our day. If something was hopeless when I was young, you couldn’t give it a second thought, we were too busy enjoying the things we liked.’

One thing Webster is definitely keen on is the spreading of The Stand’s wings into his home town. While Newcastle was one of the first cities to have a comedy club outside London in the 80s, he believes its more recent lull can be kick-started by the presence of such an established venue. ‘I’m not saying this in a biased way but I think they’ve chosen right, because they had thought about going further north with a new club. Newcastle’s geographical remoteness makes it have a culture of its own; it’s 100 miles from Leeds and 100 miles from Edinburgh and as a result of that, it’s built up its own unique culture and comedy. I think The Stand can bring that out.’

The Stand, Edinburgh, Thu 15–Sat 17 Dec; The Stand, Glasgow, Tue 27–Sat 31 Dec.

Gavin Webster The Quayside, Gateshead and Art Galleries