I’ve always loved writing, then I realised I was good at telling funny stories. I’m the kind of person who if I'm not passionate about something then I can’t do it.
I started a media and communications course at Glasgow Caledonian University and quit six months later. Further education was something I just couldn’t stick to.
Then I had a few more in-between jobs before going to college to do television studies, another course I dropped out of. For about five years I've worked as a runner on TV and film productions.
Honestly, every runner could write a book, because of the huge amount of sh*t and terrible people you need to deal with. The best thing about those jobs was that they gave me great material for characters and observational comedy.
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One of the things that I’m so grateful for in my comedy ”job”, is people laughing and actually paying money to come and see me live. It's so brilliant to do this for a living.
Building a following over the past few years has been a real bonding experience. There were 3000 people in the audience at my Glasgow Armadillo show back in January, which was a total buzz and I’m even more buzzing to be performing again at The Fringe with Gilded Balloon in August.
I’m lucky to be working on a few different projects and ultimately hope to write, direct and star in my own TV series or film. People often ask why I take on all these roles, I just really enjoy writing and directing, as well as performing, so I thought I’d just pursue them all at the same time.
The end goal is always just to make people laugh. I’d never really thought about it, then someone said to me, 'what you do brings people joy'.
I think that’s a really nice way to put it. I'm not saving the world but if I can make somebody laugh, blatantly, then that's a great thing.
I was terrified about the prospect of doing live stuff because I'm used to being behind the screen where I can edit and reshoot a million times. People think it's just off-the-cuff stuff, taken in two seconds, when I’ve actually done it 400 times.
With every live show, I get a little less nervous and just hope for the best. I remember when I did my first show last year, I thought about not doing it because it really, really scared me.
It’s that thing, isn't it? If it scares you, you have to do it . . . so I’m doing it.
A lot of my humour comes from my family. I’ve got two brothers and a sister who I'm very close to.
I'm really lucky to have grown up with them and to have that bond. Some of my patter in the show is universal and can make people laugh regardless of where they come from, but I also like to make some really niche references that only my siblings and my mum will understand.
I know if they find them funny then it must be alright.
Paul Black: Self Care Era, August 4-10 at Gilded Balloon at the National Museum of Scotland, for more information, head to: GildedBalloon.
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