Stand-up Liam Farrelly takes on our Q&A aimed at rising stars of the Scottish comedy scene. He tells us when you should change an offensive joke and how not to lose an entire room

Can you tell us about the moment when you thought: 'stand-up is for me'?
I've always watched stand-up and been interested by it. I read Kevin Bridges' book and found out that The Stand in Glasgow did a new act night. I just thought 'well, am not doing anything else so I might as well give it a go'. I applied for it and got a five-minute spot and everything's just gone on from then.

Do you have any pre-show rituals you can tell us about?
I'm not superstitious so never bothered with one. What I usually do before I go on for my spot is watch the compere talk to the audience, as it helps to get an idea of the type of people in the crowd and what stuff they laugh at. So when it comes to my spot, I try and make a reference to someone in the audience the compere has picked up on. It usually gets a good laugh and the audience appreciates that I've been paying attention; also it's a call-back so it's structurally strong.

How do you handle hecklers?
There's usually a lot of variables that go into dealing with a heckler, one of the biggest being how much they have had to drink. If they're properly steaming and you engage too much with them the whole thing just sounds like an argument up the back of a night bus, so it's good to hit them with one put-down and not give them a chance to respond. I would say don't go too hard on a heckler, I've seen it happen before and if a comedian goes too far they can end up losing the entire room.

Where do you draw the line when it comes to 'offensive comedy'?
I don't think there should be a line; I believe that every comedian has the right to say whatever they want when they're on stage. But equally the audience have the right not to laugh at something they find offensive. If you're an audience member and you find a joke offensive and don't laugh and everyone else doesn't laugh, then the comedian is left with a few options. They can change the joke so it's not offensive, add some nuance to it, or stop telling the joke. If they don't do any of those things they'll find it very hard to get gigs. What I would say is if you're an audience member and you don't laugh because you find something offensive but most other audience members are laughing then you probably need to look inwards to yourself. Chances are there's probably nothing wrong with the joke, it's just you're too close to the situation that's being joked about to laugh at it. In that situation there's not much the comedian can do it about.

What's the one thing you remember about your very first stand-up gig?
One of the main things I remember about my first gig was that I had to leave it early. I was still in high school at the time and the gig was on a Tuesday. My mum would have been raging if I'd come home after midnight on a school night so I never got to see the headliners. As I was leaving a guy asked me if I had work in the morning and I had to say "no mate, I've got National 4 Lifeskills Maths in the morning". It was pretty surreal going back to class where I was being taught the names of 3D shapes when I had been performing for over a hundred people the night before.

You're curating your own 'legends of comedy' line-up. Tell us the bill's top three acts...
I'd probably go with Frankie Boyle, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle. With honourable mentions going to Kevin Bridges, Tom Stade, Patrice O'Neal and Bill Burr.

Which comedy memoirs would you recommend to someone?
Steve Martin's Born Standing Up is seriously good. I'm reading Kevin Hart's one right now and that's alright. Romesh Ranganathan's Straight Outta Crawley is really good as well. I enjoyed all of Frankie Boyle's books and Kevin Bridges' one is well worth a read too.

What's the best piece of advice you've received from another comedian so far?
Just read and write as much as you can, which is a bit difficult for me because I'm dyslexic but I try my best. It does help to read as much as you can because it's a large part of this job so it's really helpful when you're trying to figure out how to structure stuff and how to tell a story. Reading also helps you see things from other perspectives which is really useful for writing jokes. I can't remember who gave the advice but they told me to read a bit of everything like philosophy, comedy biographies, literary classics and all that. I'd say it has really helped me when it comes to writing my own material.

The Stand, Glasgow, Thu 4–Sat 6 Jul.