IPSWICH: Comedian Reginald D Hunter has performed the world over and is well-known face on primetime TV shows - not bad for somebody who only tried stand-up as a dare.

It was something the actor from Georgia, USA, had considered; but never seriously until he was in a Birmingham bar one night.

“I was a little drunk, a bit down on my luck and I was just kind of venting to the ether. The four or five people in the bar were laughing pretty hard and daring slash encouraging me to do the new material night that was there,” he remembers. “I didn’t write a joke until, like, my fifth gig. Before that I was nothing but attitude.”

He’s looking forward to coming to the Ipswich Regent next Wednesday with his new show. It started off being about about bullying and the practical uses it actually serves but is, Hunter says, evolving into something more.

“It raises the bar for the performer to have to nail something along a theme with a narrative and then be able to hang jokes off that. All of my themes and ideas are either from my personal experiences or personal research and my reaction to it,” says the comedian, who describes stand-up as art.

“The tour’s been going very well and I’m really lucky to be touring with Steve Hughes. I think he’s one of the five or six best English speaking comics in the world. What we offer the audience in terms of what they pay for, I think we give more than what they pay for and I’m proud of that.”

Plain talking Australian Hughes is viewed as one of the most exciting stand-ups working the UK and international circuit. His mix of quirky anecdotes and witty one-liners has earned him a legion of fans and numerous TV appearances.