Comedian Russell Kane talks ahead of his appearance at the Tivoli

Now, the tousle-haired poster boy for ‘geek chic’ is staying at the “cutest B&B you could imagine” in a village outside Scunthorpe, as he tours the Smokescreens & Castles show which wowed Edinburgh, and will see him on the road until May.

“It was actually fourth time lucky at Edinburgh, because my first show was nominated for best newcomer,” he says, gently correcting me.

“That’s what’s really pumped me up – that people are starting to take notice.”

The phone hasn’t stopped ringing for Kane since the announcement at the end of August: “I’ve had no life, in a brilliant way. It’s scary but fantastic and I want to make the right decisions.”

As well as returning to I’m A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! Now! in November, one of those decisions has been to front new show Freak Like Me, which showcases the nation’s weirdest habits. From chewing fingernails, to spending eight hours cleaning a car, Kane says it’s a celebration of what it means to be quirky, adding: “Eccentricity and oddity is probably in the DNA in our country.”

He readily admits the producers approached him because they felt he would ‘fit in’: “We found each other like two odd-looking people on the dancefloor,” he quips.

“They’d already done a pilot, but they wanted to make it non-sneery, so they were experimenting with different hosts. They came to see my show and said, ‘Wow, here’s a guy who on most levels is completely abnormal’. When they described the concept, I was like, ‘Yes please’, it just felt so natural.”

Kane’s favourite ‘freak’ is a guy who collects dead bees and makes a dead bee museum. He was never shocked by anything on the show, but admits he found it hard to keep a straight face sometimes.

The 30-year-old prides himself on his own quirks and even demonstrates a few of them on the programme: “I’m a bit of an over-planner, it dominates my life,” he explains.

“I lay my clothes out the night before and put the coffee machine on so I can just walk through the morning.”

Surely the system breaks down after a big night out?

“It wouldn’t happen. You know people who say, ‘Sometimes I just fall asleep without brushing my teeth’? I feel like punching them. It fills me with shock they could let go of themselves to that extent.

“I could be passed out in the front garden with a puddle of vomit next to me (which has never happened – I’m far too in control of my reactions) and someone could wake me up, tuck me into bed, but I would shoot out at 4am, brush my teeth, order my clothes and go back to bed without fail.”

Speaking to the friendly, chatty comic, it’s easy to see how he’s become such a success as a stand-up, but his life could have been very different.

Born in Enfield, Essex, to a cleaner and a sheet metal worker, Kane wasn’t encouraged to be academic by his parents, yet he managed to get a degree in English.

“I come from a chavvy council estate where no one went to university,” he says.

“I was the freak that went to college and managed to get a job in a marketing office, thinking up headlines for advertising. I’d made it. I was the first person from my family or street who got to sit on coloured bits of foam and get paid to think, rather than scrub or build.”

He’d never seen live comedy and didn’t know Eddie Izzard was “anything other than an actor” when someone in his office dared him to try stand-up.

“I typed it into Google, clicked the first link for stand-up comedy in London, called them and said, ‘How does it work?’”

His first amateur night was a success: “The next morning I was like, ‘I’m in love’ and the whole thing was a cocky dare.”

Around the same time Kane got into stand-up, his father David died of a heart attack: “Out of life comes death. When he died, it unlocked all of this in me.”

His family life and childhood, particularly his strained relationship with his dad, is the main focus of his Smokescreens & Castles gig, but he makes sure he never takes it too far.

“There are certain things my mum’s asked me not to speak about and I respect that as long as she lives. The moment she pegs it – come and see the show, it’ll be interesting,” he jokes.

And with that you can sense he’s practically skipping off to prepare for his next performance.

• Russell Kane presents his Smokescreens and Castles show at the Tivoli at Wimborne on February 19.

Freaks on show

• Harry Peirson plays in a band, but in his spare time, he likes to eat food out of rubbish bins. He’s found and eaten whole pizzas, doughnuts and even langoustines and says his stomach is now immune to any out-of-date food.

• Body piercer Julie prefers the taste of stale food to fresh food, so she leaves her food out overnight with the packets open and lets glasses of orange squash gather dust.

• Student Pippa is obsessed with raiding skips and has a huge collection of other people’s rubbish – including wheelchairs, electrical amps, van headlights and even letters.