Tom Stade is a comedian who is constantly evolving.

The Canadian comic has gone through many guises since he started touring as an 18-year-old.

Beginning his career in Canada, the stand-up has now moved to the UK in his bid to seek comedy perfection and has collaborated with some of the UK's best homegrown and most controversial comics, including Frankie Boyle and Daniel Sloss, during his journey to comedic success.

Now 45, the comic, who is a regular on panel shows including Mock the Week, refuses to become complacent and still constantly pushes himself to find new inspirations and different perspectives that will expand his routines.

"I have just too many influences to mention but I am influenced by young comedians that have only been doing it for two years", he says. "When I see them they remind me of the drive I have because it's very easy to get complacent when you're successful. It's sort of like that Rocky Three thing, I don't want to get soft and have Mr T beat me up just because I thought I was so great."

His desire to continue growing as a comic is now the focus of his new show, You're Welcome, which visits The Stand in Edinburgh on Wednesday, May 11.

"The show is really about the fact that I've changed from being Canadian to being British," says Tom. "It says that I'm totally fine with changing all the time and becoming something different. To me, I've already done Canada, what I haven't been is a British person. Maybe 10 years from now I'll be Lithuanian or whatever."

The show also focuses on the human condition and its obsession with labels, a topic that fascinates Tom and has shaped his comedy.

"In this climate everyone is so precious about being what they think they are," he says. "I like to try and dispel that a little bit. You've always got to bring yourself down to the base of human.

"Labels are really a wanting more thing. You start off as human but you want more. I understand these labels and I'll play the role but I'll never take them as seriously as a lot of people do."

However, it was not just his desire to 'be British' that fuelled Tom's move to Edinburgh, the Scots love of comedy played its part too.

"The fact of the matter is that Scotland has easily the best amateur nights probably in all of Britain because it's a proper audience", he says. "I've been to London amateur nights where they're in a bar somewhere or they call it a gong show but at The Stand in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the amateur night feels like a real night, you feel like you're performing in front of a real audience.

"That's why I like living up here because every week you can just go to The Stand and try out new material. I can cultivate a show without anybody seeing it and keep it underground until I'm ready to bring it out.

"It's tough to start in this business and when I think about all the new guys who are coming up, they're really lucky to have a place like this that gets them the feel of what a real show is."

Tom may have spent years honing his comedy craft but he says that the skill comics have for telling funny stories is one that's inside everybody.

"Everybody has funny thoughts", says Tom. "It's only the comedian who sees it as a livelihood. We're more aware of our funny thoughts and sometimes they're actually quite deep funny thoughts but the fact of the matter is that everybody has them. All I really do is I'm good at jotting them down and keeping a note about that, I think every great comedian does it. Even JK Rowling who created Harry Potter says she has little notes that she puts in a box.

"I don't think comedians are any different than that and as soon as you get enough of these little ideas then you can sort of match ideas that you had two months ago to something that you thought today. I guess that's the fun of it, it's a puzzle that you don't really know you're making."

Tom's desire to change and grow has seen him write for Frankie Boyle's controversial Channel Four series Tramadol Nights, create off-the-wall indie sitcom M.U.F.F. with Daniel Sloss and tackle sensitive issues, including political correctness.

"It's sort of creeping into everything whereas political correctness should really just be for politicians who are trying to be elected and not offend everybody", he says. "That's what comedy is to me, it's really there to expose the heaviest things to the lightest things and the hypocrisy of them and really just talk about the human condition because the human condition isn't politically correct. You can tell me all your political correctness but when you look at humanity as a whole we're just a bunch of morons trying to get it right.

"There's good things that humans have done to each other, there's horrible things but if you push those horrible things underground and don't talk about them even though they may be politically incorrect then they will keep going until it just becomes ridiculous and you won't be able to say anything."

Tom is now preparing to bring his show, which started at the Fringe, back to Edinburgh for a final performance at The Stand.

"I think this is the one I'm going to make the CD", he says. "There's a certain comfort level because I've played it so many times. To me it's just nice that I'm going to be able to finish and come home and go to bed and have a fridge and not wonder where I'm going to get food from at 1am.

"The Stand is just the perfect comedy club. There are certain ways you should have a comedy club, there are venues that make you feel like you want to hear something that you shouldn't and The Stand has that."

Tom Stade will play The Stand in Edinburgh on Wednesday, May 11.