'I enjoy inviting chaos': Tom Gleeson coming to Thirroul in August

But what happens when you're a comedian and your job involves making people laugh? How do you push yourself to be funny if you've, say, had an argument with your partner or just been given some bad news?

For comedian Tom Gleeson, going out on stage is actually a relief from whatever else is going on in his life.

"It's sort of weird - if you have particular problems in your life, when you're standing on stage for an hour with 1000 people who don't know about your problems, it's an escape," Gleeson said.

"So it can actually be really, quite soothing at times like that. But I really like doing stand-up and I remember what it was like to perform to 10 people in a pub on a Wednesday. So a sold-out show with 1000 people gets me in the mood pretty quick.

"Even if I've got some bad news, I'm kind of never not in the mood. I'm always happy - if the show's sold out, I'm pretty happy to do it."

He's on an extended tour with his new show Gear - the title of which is an in-joke for comedians as "gear" is what they call their material.

While the broad bones of the show is the same night after night, there's a degree of audience participation that makes each one unique.

"If people have been at the show before, they would know this, I always invite the audience to tell me something that they didn't believe at the end," he said.

"If there's anything they didn't believe I get the crowd to yell out and I tell them the truth behind the story. So that's always changes - the last part of the show is very off the cuff."

It means Gleeson has no idea what will come back at him from the audience, but rather than feel nervous about that, he said he thrives on it.

"If you've noticed anything about my career, I enjoy inviting chaos - I think it's entertaining," Gleeson said.

"Even with Hard Quiz Kids, I feel like half the entertainment value is watching me dealing with the kids. It's just having to cope and I know that that's entertaining.

"So if someone wrong-foots me, to me, that's when I come alive. I think that's when you know you're in for some proper good times."

Comedians can fear TV because of the risk it can burn through material pretty quickly. A few hundred people might turn up for a stand-up show but many more will watch a performance on TV.

And if they've seen you being funny on TV and you try and do the same gags in a stand-up show, the audience won't be impressed.

Gleeson's TV schedule has been pretty full of late with Hard Quiz, the Hard Quiz Kids spin-off and Taskmaster, but he's not worried about burning any material. He sees them as different beasts, with gags that work on TV not being likely to have the same effect on stage.

"Hard Quiz is very much in the moment," he said.

"Often the jokes are due to particularly unique circumstances where a particular contestant with a particular speciality said a particular thing that made me say whatever I said.

"So to try to get the stars to align again in a stand-up show is pretty much impossible. There's pretty much zero crossover between Hard Quiz and my stand-up show."

An occupational hazard for comedians is those people who walk up to them at the supermarket, on the street or wherever and say "tell us a joke".

Gleeson used to respond with a joke but soon gave that up because the person then wouldn't actually get the joke.

So now he just takes advantage of his somewhat abrasive stage persona.

"I'm lucky because I can just insult them and they think it's a joke and what I've said is probably actually true," he said.

"Like 'shut up, get out of my face' and they're like 'that's a classic'. And I'm like, 'no, seriously'."

Tom Gleeson performs at Anita's Theatre in Thirroul on August 3.