I’m OK if audiences hate me, what I don’t want is pity

Harriott considers himself to be one of the fortunate ones. “I’ve only recently realised when I was thinking about the show that none of us had dads. It was never spoken about. It was just a common thing.” His father Patrick did not live at home but, until his suicide, at least he was able to stay in contact with him by phone when he wasn’t in prison. “Looking back I think all we really wanted was for our dads to give us a hug and say they loved us.”

Luckily the only time he was stopped by the police he didn’t have a knife on him. “It was for something I didn’t do. My friend fitted the description of someone who had stolen a phone and they took me in too. I was put in a holding cell for 18 hours. It was not a nice experience. I knew it was not the life for me.”

Everything changed on New Year’s Eve when Harriott was 15. “I got into an argument with the gang over who made really crazy. I feel like I’ve already peaked. I feel like I’ve already hit the bonus.”

Harriott is by no means the first comic to tackle serious personal subjects. Richard Pryor built an entire career around this kind of confessional material. Like Pryor, Harriott’s priority is to make the material funny. “I need to get this stuff out. All I’ve really got as a stand-up is my honesty. I’m OK if audiences hate me. What I don’t want is pity. These stories might sound like tragedy but I don’t compute it as tragedy.”

Like most talented comedians, of course, beyond the brash exterior he feels the pressure. “I’m enjoying this rollercoaster. I just worry that it could all go. This is the most important time in my career. But my main goal is to have fun.”

He need not worry. He has more stage work planned after the Edinburgh Fringe — performing, not doing the security. But for now his ambitions are simple. He’d like to help his mother Paulette, who is a carer, but she doesn’t want anything. “She worked so hard for her two sons. I said I’d buy her driving lessons, she said ‘I’ve got a bus pass, I’m happy’.”

And he would like to move out of his Wembley houseshare. “One room has a horrible smell. Nobody lasts more than three months in there. My girlfriend hates the house. My dream is to have my own fridge. With an ice compartment.” ⬤ Darren Harriott is previewing Visceral at The Top Secret Comedy Club, WC2 (thetopsecretcomedyclub. co.uk), tonight and Bread & Roses,

SW4 (breadandrosespub.com) on July 12. Then at the Pleasance, Edinburgh (edfringe.com), from August 1-26

If somebody punched me I definitely would have pulled out a knife, 100 per cent. That’s how stupid we were