British comedian Ian Stone is currently taking his Edinburgh Fringe Show Ian Stone is Keeping it Together on a national tour. Culture Editor Ruby Kwartz chats with Ian about his latest show, his decades-long comedy career and how he combines his job with his love of football and music.

You know when you ask people how they are and they say I’m fine or I’m alright because they don’t want to overburden people with their nonsense, when people ask me I say “I’m Keeping it Together”. I say that because I don’t think that the other answer really conveys the effort it takes to keep it together and, in some way, I want that effort acknowledged. So the show is really about trying to keep it together when we are faced with so many things trying to pull us apart.

Essentially, it’s me moaning in a funny way about all of my suffering – biblical times and onwards. Jews are quite uniquely placed to talk about suffering so, I do.

Yes in a funny way! Jews moaning has always been funny. We’re in tense times at the moment but we have a unique way of expressing ourselves and that’s what I’m trying to tap into.

If I’m talking about my own appearance then that’s the way I look, if people want to hold it against me they can but ultimately that’s just the way I look. I think one has to be careful with other stereotypes, and I don’t really talk about how other people look. So no, I don’t think I am reinforcing stereotypes, I’m just talking about me. I do talk a little bit about Israel and Palestine, but even then I’m trying to be as balanced as possible.

Mixed! It’s a very tense time. It’s interesting walking onstage at gigs and saying “It’s a weird time to be a Jew” and the tension in the room is very interesting, but then you talk about it and people start to think “oh, ok”. I’m just a regular guy talking about how I feel about things at the moment, and once people realise that even when I’m talking about broader political subjects I’m really talking about it from a very personal point of view – I think that’s fine really.

I’m talking more about football in this show than in others – I’m using football as an analogy for life – but what I find interesting is that more people understand it. When I started doing comedy, if you talked about football half of the audience would be completely alienated, but now football is much more culturally acceptable than it used to be so you can talk about it and be funny about it. I know that there are people who don’t like football but I can’t do anything about them (I don’t understand what’s wrong with them) but I find it encouraging that I can talk about it a little more.

Honestly it’s painful – it takes three years to get a laugh. I’m used to instant gratification. What’s lovely about it is that I still get messages from people about how much my book meant to them and it’s an amazing thing. I didn’t read a book until I was 20, so to have written one is really something. It’s a thing that will last beyond me and I’m proud of it.

Yeah I’ve got some ideas. I’ve half-written one about the comedy world which I might pursue. It’s a big undertaking and I’ve been concentrating on my shows and the Arsenal podcast for a while.

On a basic level, most of the bills that I’m on now are much more diverse than they used to be, with more women and more people of colour. When I used to do gigs 30 years ago it was almost all men, so it’s changed in that way. Also social media plays a big part now and obviously when I was getting started we didn’t have any of that. There’s a lot of work around and more people are touring and doing one-man or one-woman shows than they used to, but television is probably less powerful than it used to be. There’s opportunities everywhere, but what’s interesting now is that you can curate your own career and bypass the gatekeepers in a way that you never used to be able to, so I think it’s a positive.

As long as you keep writing, working and trying to stay relevant – I don’t really think about it in those terms but I love doing it. I go out there and talk sh*t for money, it’s absolutely brilliant and I can’t believe I still get away with it. I try and be creative and write new shows and hope that people like it.