British Comedy Award winner Aisling Bea is heading to Greenwich Comedy Festival, where she will perform on the same bill as Reginald D Hunter, Henning Wehn and Ed Gamble on Wednesday, September 16.

Ahead of the show, Vibe caught up with Aisling...

What are you looking forward to most about Greenwich Comedy Festival?

“The audiences are always tops. Will Briggs who runs it is a well known pursuer of "good vibes" and that seems to permeate through how the festival is booked and run and seems to seep into the audience's brains too.”

What’s your favourite memory from previous years?

“Without a doubt my gig last year with Adam Hills. He managed to get four people in the audience with some sort of leg disability onto stage and they all performed a disabled Can Can with their malfunctioned legs or prosthetics.

“I sat there in awe, of both him and the people who were amazingly good sports.”

You’re up in Edinburgh now – how is it going?

“Grand, it's my second show, so the first week was a tough slog getting into the groove, but I feel like I found my feet in week two, I'm still learning and the audiences are delightfully helpful.

“Even when it has been tough, it has been lovely as I've got the best group of friends up here.

“I'm living with Katherine Ryan and her daughter and Joe Lycett and get to hang out with Brett Goldstein and Pappys and David O'Doherty and Nish Kumar and Lou Sanders and Tom Allen - just talented and loving  friends who make me and their audiences laugh in equal measure.

“It's a very supportive community, although I'd stab every single one of them in the back for a headline spot.”

People will recognise you from TV – how much do you enjoy TV work?

“Depends on the job. For TV, obviously acting is the best job as you've a team and a script and you get to create something collaboratively.

“Panel shows are great when you are working with friends who are on too, but they can be nerve wracking if subjects come up that you are not interested in and you've to try and find an angle on it.

“TV is an odd fish as someone else controls what part of you makes it to air, so sometimes people think they know you and then turn up to gigs and are like "why the hell is she talking about pigeons and Hollyoaks? I thought she was dead pan from that QI I saw her on".

“But it's mainly a bloody, silly, brilliant job and I'm not working in A&E saving lives.”

What’s the most enjoyable TV gig? And the least?

“I really like doing Qi as sometimes you can just go "no way! Really?" and that is fine.

“But mainly acting is the most satisfying. Doing stand-up for TV can be the least satisfying. 

“Performing a stand-up routine with a camera crew pointed at you feels odd and like not what stand-up is supposed to be.

“I got into stand-up for the live element, for the bit where it is you and the audience in a room and you feed off each other's live vibes and  I don't think you can ever get the same buzz or an audience watching in their sitting can ever get the same buzz or judge watching from their sitting room.

“Something in my brain still goes "oh GOD this will be online forever now" and that plays into your eyeballs as not being as free as you are on stage where you are not trying to play your work for both audiences.

“I'm sure that as I progress and get better and more experienced, that will become easier. I also made a Sky Arts show pilot called The Damned that Jo Brand and Morwenna Banks wrote - I played a nutty, single mother and that was a joy to film.”

Did I read that you have a part in Graham Linehan’s new sitcom? What can you tell us about that?

“I can't tell you much other than we begin filming in the New Year and he is making it with the hilarious, wonderful Adam Buxton who is also in it and it is set in the future and I am so bloody excited.”

Who or what makes you laugh most?

“The end of Bridget Christie's show this year kept a laugh repeating on me throughout the day like a bottle of fizzy orange. Funniest end to a show I have ever seen.”

What one thing could you not live without?

“The baking history bits in the Great British Bake Off where they explain where cheese puffs and biscuits came from. I pretend like that is as important as watching a Panorama.”

Magners’ Greenwich Comedy Festival is at the National Maritime Museum from September 16 to 20. Go to greenwichcomedyfestival.co.uk