Stand-up, radio presenting, TV stardom and a one-man musical are on the horizon for North- East comic Alife Joey. He talks to Viv Hardwick.

ALFIE Joey might have the ideal name for stand-up comedy, but it’s his powers as a master of ceremonies and radio show presenter which have really got him noticed.

I talked to the 43-year-old just after he’d finished his shift as the Radio Newcastle morning show host and discovered that comedy club MCing, a new one-man musical and a return appearance in Johnny Vegas’ BBC4 comedy series Ideal are all in the pipeline.

“I fell into radio because I was a comedian who got offered more and more bits of radio to review the papers or talk about various subjects. So I found myself in radio by accident.

If you’d have said to me three or four years ago that I’d be interviewing Peter Mandelson and covering the Raoul Moat case in Rothbury I’d have said you’re off your trolley, but that’s what I’ve done. It’s like an adventure to me.

“When I backed off the comedy to throw myself into radio, a friend of mine said ‘won’t you miss gigging?’ and I said ‘I’m gigging every day but to 100,000 people or more’. Some of the skills of a comedian are really useful for doing radio,”

says Joey, who pays tribute to the team around him on-air.

The comic more used to going to bed in the early hours is now emerging from his home at 3.30am to start the day. “We’re in at 5am and you’re talking about a lot of research because our show is all talk, there’s no music… if you’re lucky you’ve got a news bulletin to use when you really need the loo.”

Joey has been on air for about 18 months and I ask whether he realises that he stands or falls by the listening figures?

“Ultimately, yes. I think that radio and TV are quite similar.

The one guarantee you have is that you will be sacked or replaced by someone younger and better than yourself. It’s just the way of it. Stand-up is quite good, you can’t really be sacked. The sheer nature of the circuit means it’s ongoing.”

His MC duties have to be kept to a Saturday because of the radio job.

“I’ve missed the comedy, so I’ve written a brand new oneman show that I’m going to be doing at the Edinburgh Festival.

It’s a musical called Monopolise!

(featuring a certain board game and a serial killer) and I play all the parts and I’ve written all the songs. I needed to get this back in my system because I’ve missed it.

“I’m also doing the Customs House at South Shields, the Lamplight Theatre in Stanley and hopefully some venues in the Tees Valley patch and Richmond. I love gigging down there because I’ve got relatives in Darlington,” he says.

Joey has already got the script for the next series of Ideal, which features him as the allotment obsessed Derek to Vegas’ drug-dealing antihero.

“I’m in four episodes and we’re shooting that at the end of this month. It’s great. Last year, when I was filming I did a couple of radio shows from BBC Manchester because there’s always a studio somewhere where you can do a live link-up. So I did them from the set of Ideal.

“I don’t know how, after seven series, that Derek can come up with vegetables I’ve never heard of to talk about.

It’s quite strange playing a really boring character when really you’re meant to be lively and interesting,” he adds.

Joey explains that Vegas is “surprising professional”

given the fact he’s consistently cast as a clown “who is worse for wear after a couple of pints”.

“It’s all an act. It’s like Dean Martin, you’re never sure whether he’s doing it brilliantly or doing it for real. On set, he’s in every scene and has a colossal number of lines to learn and he just knows them all. He’s very bright, as viewers have seen on QI.”

And if that’s not enough, Joey is aiming to launch more stand-up comedy workshops for kids in County Durham during the summer holidays.

“Forget drugs, forget drink, you will never have a buzz like doing stand-up comedy.”

* Saturday: Grinning Idiot Comedy Club debut, Journal Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, Alun Cochrane, Mick Ferry, Nathan Caton and MC Alfie Joey. 8.30pm, Tickets: £10 advance, £12 door.

Feb 18: The Playhouse, Whitley Bay. Tom Stade, Simon Donald, Norman Lovett and MC Alfie Joey. 8.30pm.

Feb 26: Customs House, South Shields, Simon Donald, Gavin Webster, Chris Ramsey and MC Alfie Joey.

8.30pm. Box Office: Radio host: Alfie Joey thegrinningidiot.com