He has just finished his 17th sell-out year at the Edinburgh Fringe, regularly tours Australia where he is the darling of TV talk shows and is about to embark upon a multi-date, multi-country tour.

Not bad for someone who claims he has never had a career plan.

“Och, I’ve never been one for ambition and planning,” says Craig Hill, king of quips and campery, airily. “I just go with the flow…”

Growing up in East Kilbride, Craig studied acting and cut hair for friends before a mate signed him up for a Fringe gig without him knowing.

“She knew I’d never do it on my own,” he grins. “I did love performing – I loved acting especially and really enjoyed my course at Langside College.

“I suppose comedy is a kind of acting – you’re up on stage, performing a version of yourself. I did a lot of singing in my early shows and while I still sing, it’s not the kind of ‘Shirley Bassey does The Smiths’ or ‘Julie Andrew sings punk’ stuff that I did before.

“Now it’s more likely to be me doing a bit of variety – bit of dancing with the audience, generally larking about like a blithering idiot, or maybe getting someone up on stage to do a duet.”

He adds: “I did a duet with a bloke in Dundee recently – he said he was an opera singer, so I said ‘prove it’. And he was absolutely brilliant.”

The audience, in all of its wacky, wonderful and weird glory, plays an essential role in Craig’s shows which combine cheeky chat with razor-sharp observation about the world around him.

“I love talking to the people who come to see me – it makes every night a one-off,” he beams. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the opera singer from Dundee or the wummin from Perth who had a bottle of gin in her bag because she thought the bar prices were too expensive, or the woman called Soltan who I was begging to say her surname was Vinegar….they are all fabulous.

“And they make their way into the show itself because I meet so many brilliant people, I end up telling the next audience all about them.”

Despite his fondness for ‘picking on’ his audience, there is no malice and any teasing is well received.

“I’ve never been heckled,” he says, genuinely surprised by the question. “I’ve been doing this for long enough that people know what they’re getting…and if they don’t want to get involved they just don’t sit near the front. And I’m never nasty – it’s all done with tongue firmly in cheek…”

Craig’s sudden success on the comedy scene – five gigs after his unexpected debut thanks to his well-meaning friend he was on at London’s famous Comedy Store – led to regular spots on BBC2; a spell as T in the Park host interviewing everyone from Pink to Goldfrapp; his own TV chat show Craig Hill’s Out Tonight; and a BBC Radio Scotland series about people and their hobbies, Craig Hill’s Passionate Encounters.

He has also appeared at international festivals as far afield as Cape Town and New York and has performed at Sydney Opera House and for the Norwegian Navy….

But in all of this whirlwind, Craig’s own passion was always for stand-up and as he embarks upon a mammoth six-month tour which finishes at Oran Mor in Glasgow in March, he is delighted to be back in the thick of it.

“In a sense, this tour brings me back to where I started,” he muses. “Doing accents, bringing characters to life, bringing different voices alive.

“Edinburgh was brilliant this year – I really enjoyed the writing process too. I’ve been doing this since the year 2000 so that’s – wait, I need to count on my fingers (ooh, my maths teachers would be so proud) – seventeen years. Seventeen years! I still get nervous but it subsides more quickly now and I can get on with enjoying it.”

He adds: “But I love touring because the shows tend to be longer and I find that weirdly relaxing. In Edinburgh you have to be done in an hour, it’s so fast-paced. On tour, you get time to breathe.”

He adds, with a laugh: “Although have you seen how amazing this list of places is? It looks exhausting…”

Craig’s new tour, which kicks off on Friday, will take him from Rutherglen to Rotterdam, from Cumbernauld to Estonia.

In keeping with the eyewatering titles of previous shows (Craig Hill Makes Your Whole Week! and Why Don't You Come Down The Front? being some of the most memorable), the latest show - Craig Hill is Up and Coming – promises more audience banter, more acute observations and more very, very funny stories.

“I just like the chat, having a gas, telling people what I’ve seen or what I’ve done – it’s a very Scottish thing, don’t you think, that urge to share stories?” smiles Craig. “It’s instinctive. I just want to talk all the time. I love the patter.”

He adds, with a burst of laughter: “Yeah, thank God I found comedy, eh? Or I’d be the most annoying hairdresser in the world….”

Craig Hill is Up and Coming kicks off at Cumbernauld Theatre on Friday (September 30) and will visit venues around Scotland before concluding at Oran Mor on March 10 and 11, 2017. Visit www.mrcraighill.com for venues, dates and details.