Ian Stone is the finest stand-up comic ever to emerge from West Hendon. BEENA NADEEM talks to him about his life and his new show.

Returning to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival six years after he upset organisers there with the name of his show A Little Piece of Kike, the comedian Ian Stone returns with Embrace the Chaos.

"It is the Jewish version of 'nigger', explains Stone. "People get offended very easily. I didn't change it in the end, it just appeared as 'k***'. I thought I'd get away with it because I was calling myself it."

Having once been a model Jewish son, an engineer with a degree, and fairly religious with it, things obviously changed along the way. His mother was one of those who were not amused by the title of his show.

"She wasn't that impressed," he says. "She wasn't chuffed. But what do I care? I have my own life. If you sound funny, you're more likely to get away with it. Comedy helps you get away with behaving badly."

In Embrace the Chaos, which is appearing at this year's Edinburgh Festival, he tackles the bigger questions in life with effervescent wit.

Global terrorism, the London bombings, politics and religion are generally things Stone lists as making him angry, which in turn, he says, is one of the best formulas for making his crowd laugh.

At the moment, it's religion and politics that inspire his stand-up.

"I talk about global terrorism," he says. "I'm not bothered about sex, I think about it all the time, but it's obviously funny and talked about far too much. I talk about Western leaders' inability to solve any problems. Most of the disputes are in there, and bird flu, that's in there too.

"I'm worried about the big things. Global terrorism and big powers. When we waste so much food yet two million people are starving in African. People play £10,000 on an eye lid operation, when for just £2 people can be cured of cataracts.

"We are living in a golden time here in the West and people waste it on lots of stuff that doesn't matter. We live until 90 years old here and we waste it. That's how I feel."

Before his days as a West Hendon resident, Ian says he was brought up in Harlesden, a place he describes as a really disgusting area of London'. At the age of 11 he moved to Wilberforce Road, in West Hendon.

"My mum still lives there," he says after spending a few minutes describing why he disliked being a West Hendon resident. "It West Hendon was only slightly better than Harlesden but not much. It's a ridiculous area. There's nothing there, Brent Cross has taken everything away."

He describes leaving West Hendon for good at the age of 19 with relief in his voice and shudders at the memory of a nearby fish and chip shop owner. "He used to frighten the life out of me," he says. "He had really terrible skin. I used to think he had dipped himself into cooking oil."

Stone's background which was pretty Jewish did and didn't influence him to become a comedian.

"Jews like to talk," he says. "They have a long line of storytelling. Mind you, I went to a school with 1,500 Jews and not one of them became a comedian. Maybe it was my warped and dysfunctional upbringing that did it happy but warped."

At home, Stone is often described as having two cats and one kid. "I've actually got two kids, Elliot, eight, and Alex, four and one cat he's called Toby. The other one died."

There a short pause. "It's okay, it's okay. The cat was actually a rescue cat. The rest of his family was murdered. He was quite traumatised for a bit, but I think he's over it now. Well, I'm not sure how you tell with cats. I could come running at him with a huge knife and see if he goes running."

He's been said to deal with hecklers like the seasoned professional he is: with a comeback that could knock you speechless and he likes to rise to the challenge. He does seem consistently funny throughout the interview sharp, surreal and sweet.

But whether he realises he's funny is another matter. "It's impossible for me to gauge myself," he says. "I can't be in a room watching myself so I don't know whether I'm good. But people laugh, and I still find that weird. People think I'm good and when I see myself on video, I think, I've made all those people laugh'.

"I still find that weird. I think it's amazing to do this, but if I couldn't I would have a job otherwise." But does he feel pressure to perform all the time; to be constantly funny? "No," he answers. There's a short pause. "Not at all. I'm funny when I want to be funny. I can be serious, for example, at a funeral."

So what does annoy Ian? "Punctuality," he says, without mentioning that my phone call to him was ten minutes late.

u Ian Stone: Embrace the Chaos is on at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from August 3 until 21 at the Underbelly venue. For more details, visitwww.edfringe.com