So given that his mind always seems to be looking for jokes, does he find the creative process easy? "There's no rhyme or reason to it, " explains Philips. "You can think of a joke walking down the street or sitting with a pen and paper. Sometimes someone will just say something really stupid and I use that. Like I was dating this German girl and we were at a deli in New York and she says, 'I can't get a good bagel in Germany' and I said, 'Well, whose fault is that?'" He's adamant that once he's on stage there is no subject matter that is taboo. "There are certain things that are harder to get laughs off, but none really you can't. Basically if you get a laugh you've gotten away with it. If a joke gets a bad reaction you either change it or drop it. The audiences that see me today have no idea what audiences of the past had to endure. It's like you're writing with a nice piece of chalk not realising it's the corpses of millions of dead little critters."

Philips has a bizarrely distinctive style that sounds like a teenager's voice breaking while he's being strangled and is an odd fidgety stage presence, but asking where his on-stage persona ends results in an uncomfortably lengthy silence.

"Um, well, almost all of it is me. I've never really got into the acting part of it, like a lot of comics have. I had a lot of weird motions on stage, I would run my fingers through my hair and move weirdly. When I was growing up I didn't have a lot of contact with people and not a lot of social graces. Agents would tell me to get rid of the gestures because on TV they're overpowering and distracting and I would try to get rid of them but it threw off my timing and I would stop getting laughs."

Philips is now a semi-regular visitor to these shores, but admits it can be a little stressful. "There's a lot of very good comedians in Ireland. I wouldn't like to call it cut-throat out there but it's a bit like jamming with Charlie Parker, where you really got to be on your game. The Irish and British fans are the hippest comedy fans out there. They're kinda scary."

He's planning on doing some sightseeing while he's here and is also fond of Irish literature.

"I'm a big Samuel Beckett fan. I once met Eleanor Keaton, who is Buster Keaton's widow. Beckett wanted Buster Keaton to play Lucky in Waiting for Godot, he was his original choice when it was first produced. Beckett was a huge Laurel and Hardy and Buster Keaton fan. That's why in Waiting for Godot the two characters look kinda like Laurel and Hardy.

Anyway, Buster famously boasted he was functionally illiterate, so when Beckett sent the script to Buster he just gave it to his wife to read. She said, 'Oh it's not funny.' So he passed on it."

Another gag pops into his head and he can't help but share it. "I heard Beckett's apartment overlooked the exercise yard of a prison . . . which must have been very depressing for the prisoners."

Pat Nugent Emo Philips will be performing at the Bud Light Revue at Iveagh Gardens (Friday, 27 July-Sunday, 29 July) www. budlightrevue. com