Daniel Kitson is reluctant comedy hero

THERE'S something of your geeky teenage brother in 30-year-old comedian Daniel Kitson.

He's appears the sort of guy who gets picked last for rounders and spends hours in a darkened room with his pals talking about music, playing the latest computer game and eating Haribo jelly sweets – his favourite.

The only real difference is that Yorkshire-born Kitson actually gets paid for hanging about in basements late at night and having a laugh. And life would be perfect really, if it weren't for all those pesky people who want to make him famous, like Peter Kay for instance.

Kitson may be best known to television audiences as the bearded and bespectacled barman Spencer in the cult Channel 4 comedy series Phoenix Nights, but he was a reluctant participant.

He explains, "With television you lose control of the creative process. Besides, I'm distrustful of any level of careerist ambition. I would much rather sit and make short movies on my computer with friends and have ten people see it than do something I'm not proud of and millions of people see it."

Series creator Kay is still smarting that the talented story-teller didn't enjoy the job, "Of all the great things he's done, this is what he's least proud of".

The other things Kitson has done, however, are remarkable. Starting as a stand-up comedian at 16, he'd won a Perrier Award by the tender age of 24, along with several Fringe Firsts and a slew of international accolades.

But Kitson treats this information as if it's an embarrassing secret, the sort of thing you wouldn't want your mother to find under the mattress.

"It was unfair," says Kitson. "No-one asks you if you want to enter the Perrier Awards. Every step of the way, I was saying, I don't want to do a photo shoot, they make me itch, I find them upsetting. I don't want to do press. I don't want any of it."

In fact, the fewer people that turn up to his events, the better. "I'd really like to whittle my fan base down to about 12 – you can call them disciples if you like."

What marks this reticent star out from other shy celebrities, however, is the total control he has over his image. Acting as his own manager and publicist means that there's no one around to persuade him into that extra gig or that other interview. His website has one podcast on it, from 2005. Beside it is a note saying that he intends, eventually, to post more, maybe. It may suit Kitson down to the ground but the rest of us miss out on discovering the melancholy joy he brings to audiences with a combination of story telling, imagination, imagery and pathos.

His last tour, C-90, was a homage to those compilation tapes made for loved ones in bedrooms all over the world before the advent of CDs and mp3. The fact that no actual music featured in the show, was one of the highlights thinks Kitson. "I'm proud of that in a smug way. I want audiences to hear their own music. Mine would be a bit introspective, melancholic indie stuff." It served to raise Kitson's profile considerably in Australia, though on one occasion perhaps for the wrong reason – he was forced to stop one performance to challenge two women in the audience for interrupting him. A move he happily defends.

"It was more than them speaking. I basically walked out on stage and I talked for about three minutes which, in a show, is quite a long time to be talking. And they hadn't listened at all. They were whispering things at each other and then looking at me and giggling.

"Obviously, in every audience there's going to be people that I wouldn't get on with if I met them and there's going to be people there I would dislike if I met them. And that's fine as long as I don't know that. But if I see someone exhibiting behaviour that makes that clear to me, I have to address it or it's going to be in my head for the whole performance."

Right now, however, his head is filled with returning to Edinburgh and The Stand on Monday and Tuesday, with his latest show The Impotent Fury of the Privileged, a rueful rant about the hypocrisy in all of us when it comes to changing the world without actually doing it ourselves, while still managing to eat snacks, do crosswords and occasionally wash. But remember, no talking at the back.

• Daniel Kitson: The Impotent Fury of the Privileged, The Stand, York Place, 8.30pm, Monday and Tuesday, £10, 0131-558 7272