Rob Rouse discovered stand-up almost by accident. He was an avid follower of comedy since his early teens – Blackadder, Fry and Laurie, Vic Reeves – "but never really thinking that I could do it for a job, that it would be a tangible career. Then I went to Sheffield University just to get away from home. I grew up in a lovely little place, but there was nothing happening. It was a really small town – if people hadn’t left by the time they were 16, they were pushing prams, really. I didn’t kiss a girl by the time I was 16, so I was out of the running for that, so I went off to University. And then I ended up trained as a Geography teacher, and some mates bullied me into doing a one-off gig in a pub, it went really well, and something inside me clicked.

"I loved teaching, and it was really helpful in setting me up for stand-up, in terms of confidence, but I was too immature for the job. I wasn’t ready for that level of responsibility. I rebelled late in life, basically. So that was the moment, after that pub gig, the first time it ever occurred to me that I could be a stand-up comedian."

He quit teaching, and hit the road as a jobbing comedian, performing in pubs in front of three men and a dog. "I had a day job as well. I worked as a housekeeper for a city investment firm in the Square Mile, which is just like being a caretaker with a walkie-talkie, just emptying bins and oiling doors and stuff. I was getting up at 6am, being at work for 7:30am, leaving at 5pm and going out and doing four or five open spots a week, then going back to bed, getting up and doing it all again the next day."


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