Comedian Kevin Bridges is ending his first big tour for three years at the Villa Marina.
The Glaswegian will be coming to the island with his record-breaking 135-date European tour tonight (Thursday).
His 2012 tour, Kevin Bridges – The Story Continues… smashed records with 45,000 tickets sold on the first day of sales. Bridges explains he hasn’t been idle in the meantime.
He wrote an autobiography (We Need To Talk About... Kevin Bridges), he’s been kept busy after buying a house, a boat and a dog, and performed some shows in the run-up to last year’s Scottish independence referendum.
And he has been treating his ever-supportive parents Andy and Paddy with a trip on the Orient Express, and he took his mum to New York.
‘My dad made it clear he has financial security and doesn’t want for anything,’ he said.
‘I could buy him an expensive watch but he’s not interested. What excites my dad much more is when I come to him with a new idea for material, this new “bit”, and I take out my notebook and we go over it together and he is in fits of laughter.
‘He’ll chime in with his own wee “bits” but he knows they’re sh**e and we’ll laugh that off.’
‘A Whole Different Story’ is Kevin’s third big tour. He has no regrets about taking a break after his last one.
‘Andy argued: “You have done two big arena shows and two DVDs and you’re only 25. If you want to do this your whole life then you can afford to pull back for a while.
‘I initially thought that if I took that much time off people would forget about me ... but they haven’t. What has become very apparent to me is that you need a reason to tour.
‘It is psychological. It sounds like a cliché but all this is not simply about the money.’
Kevin explains he made a conscious decision to turn down offers when he first shot to fame in 2009 after appearing on TV in Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow.
‘I was in demand for television and I was receiving calls from my agent saying: “There are people who want to meet you and talk ideas...”
‘I had no interest in being a comedian who simply went on TV only then to burn out, not unlike The X Factor or Britain’s Got Talent contestants.
‘I concluded that if I put in the hard graft to write and perform one more big tour and DVD that would then afford me valuable time off to relax.’
Kevin said making his family proud is important to him.
‘After my first ever gig my dad welled up a bit and that was a huge moment for me, I was blown away by that.
‘It had come after a time of two/three years not going off the rails as such but definitely getting into trouble at school; getting into trouble with the police a couple of times; falling in with a bad crowd.
‘From my parents’ point of view there was a sense of “what is Kevin going to do next?” So for my father to see me on stage for the first time being creative it meant I could say: “See dad, the police and teachers are not lying, I am quite funny!”
Tonight’s show starts at 8pm.
Tickets cost £25.50, including booking fee.