IF Phil Differ had his way, filming of festive telly special Only an Excuse would finish on transmission day of Hogmanay to keep it as topical as possible.

The comedy writer and producer has to make do with a rather earlier deadline and has already written much of this year’s BBC show, ahead of going into the studio next week.

Who will comedy actor Jonathan Watson be sending up in the premier league football-themed sketch show?

“Mark Warburton, the new Rangers boss, seems to be the saviour of football, so we’ll be focusing on that. And we’ll be looking at Ronnie Deila, Ronnie’s having a rough time these days,” says Phil.

“We’ll look at other subjects, big films that are coming out, and try and get a football angle on the likes of Star Wars.

“I’m pretty sure Frank McAvennie will make an appearance at some point. I think Johnny would turn up dressed as him anyway.”

Before he heads into the TV studio, Phil will be appearing on stage on October 29 at new East End venue St Luke’s to launch the bi-monthly comedy night Gagging for It.

After years of writing hilarious material for other people, Phil decided 12 years ago that he wanted to step out in front of an audience himself.

“I was 47 and quite a late starter. I had done production work and writing, I was a judge on the So You Think You’re Funny? competition and I remember thinking, ‘I’m judging these people and I’d rather be up there doing it,’” he remembers.

A conversation followed with Fred MacAulay, who invited Phil on stage for five minutes at his next gig.

“It was the longest five minutes of my life – but as soon as I finished I thought, ‘I need to do this, I’ve got to try and get better.’

“For me it was a natural thing, it’s all about getting laughs. When you’re writing for someone else, you’re handing it over, when you’re directing you’re handing it over.

“The idea of being a stand up means you’re in total control, so if it goes great it’s you, if it goes bad it’s you. It’s quite a selfish thing, it’s all about focusing on yourself. It’s liberating.

“We’re all gamblers, the gamble is that, they’ll like me and, they’ll like my material. You’ve got to work that and you get a kick out of getting a response from the audience.”

He says some of his best nights on stage have been at tiny venues such as the upstairs room of a pub in Irvine he played recently, or Friday night in a packed Stand comedy club in Glasgow.

Nothing compares to his appearance at the now closed Riviera hotel in Las Vegas.

“It was a convention with loads of Scottish guys, so I didn’t even need to change the material. It was in a room at the top of the hotel and there was a guy with jet black hair and a suit, very Italian looking, who spoke to me when I came off stage and went into the dressing room,” he says.

“He said to me, ‘Congratulations sir, you can now say you played the same room as Mr Sinatra.’

“I thought, that’s pretty cool and said: ‘What about Dean Martin?’

“’Yes, he was here as well.’

“Sammy Davis Junior? You know you’re not quite in the same league but it was pretty cool standing there looking out at the audience and thinking, ‘It’s Las Vegas.’ You’ve got to pinch yourself.”

The warmth of the response from the audience is what makes a gig, wherever it may be. He won’t be disappointed at St Luke’s, which was nominated for an award in its first month of opening and has just been booked for a string of nights during Glasgow Comedy Festival next spring.

Close to home, Phil won’t have any trouble deciding what material to go with on Thursday. That is not always the case …

“Sometimes they’re just not buying it at all. It’s usually determined by the age of the audience – if they’re slightly younger I have to make a fool of myself as the old guy they’re all laughing at. It it’s a middle-aged audience, they’re with me right away,” he says.

“Sometimes you go off on a tangent and forget where you are and just lose the place. There’s a wee voice in your head saying, ‘Where are you going?’ And I’m trying to envisage the image of my script and I can’t remember it, I just have to go with this.

“Being the age I am it’s all kind of rueful stuff, it’s not wisecracks and gags, and trying to relate it to the age you are and where you are.”

He says for his generation, Billy Connolly was like Jimi Hendrix, but he’s love to be like Bob Hope.

“It’s all the old guys I liked, my mum got me into Bob Hope and Laurel and Hardy, it was all the old films,” he laughs.

“All comedy, if it’s relevant to you, it will be better than if you’re just writing gags about the mother in law. When I started writing, everyone was writing mother in law gags because every sitcom was about mother in laws. It’s not the same if you’re not honest about what you’re writing.

“Somebody said to me once, ‘You’re just like my pal’s uncle’. I thought, ‘If you can be like somebody’s pal’s uncle there’s something to like’. As long as you’re not that mad kind of uncle …”

Gagging for It, compered by Raymond Mearns and also starring Gary Little is on at St Luke’s, Bain Street, Glasgow, October 29. Visit www.stlukesglasgow.com