Jeremy Austin meets the funniest man not on television. ITALIAN Glaswegian Armando Iannucci, although not a household name, is a television comedy God. Many of the influential and successful comedy shows of the 1990s have been touched by his hand -- I'm Alan Partridge, Friday Night Armistice, The Day Today -- all him.

Some of the most successful comedians of the moment began their careers with him -- Steve Coogan, Chris Morris, Patrick Marber. As a producer and writer, he seems to be able to tap into the comedy vein of the nation and draw out enough funny blood to create an antidote to lack of laughteritis -- or something.

And yet, he's not completely sure about his choice of place to live. For the past four years he's been living near Amersham. "Strange" seems to be the choice word to describe it.

"It's strange being in the only Tory shire in the country," he muses.

"I find it very strange because I lived in Glasgow which is very metropolitan. Maybe it is my Italian blood but I find it very strange being in a mainly white area. I find people's attitudes strange."

He doesn't want to upset the neighbours, so he adds: "It is an odd, but endearing place."

So who is this Armando bloke who comes down here from north of the border and thinks people in Amersham are str... you know?

After university he started working as a presenter at BBC Radio Scotland. He saw an advert in The Guardian for a comedy radio producer in London, applied and got the job. He had heard Chris Morris on the radio and thought he was funny, and had seen Steve Coogan live. He got in touch with the two of them and talked of putting a show together. They each wrote bits and met for the first time on the day On the Hour was to be recorded. Coogan had created Alan Partridge. The three got on like a house on fire. And the rest is hysterical, as they say.

Armando adds: "I feel privileged to have learned from Chris and Steve.

"We all feel we have benefited from working with each other and have helped each other."

But although Steve Coogan has found massive success, Chris Morris has found notoriety with Brass Eye and Patrick Marber is an established playwright, Armando doesn't think of himself as a comedy Svengali who can write or produce sure-fire winners.

"I just try to come up with something funny. We all have the same sense of humour and if people find it funny that's great," he says.

"I don't see myself as being part of a school of comedy. There are other people, Reeves and Mortimer, The Fast Show, and they are all different from each other. And it mustn't be seen as a competitive thing."

But he has found success on television and radio. He has won two Sony Radio Awards, three British Comedy Awards -- one of which was a special award for his contribution to British Comedy -- and had Knowing Me, Knowing You... With Alan Partridge nominated for a BAFTA. Despite all this, he would be the first to admit that Armando Ianucci isn't a household name.

"I don't think anything we do is mainstream. It is still on BBC2," he points out.

"We don't feel we are mainstream. I wouldn't like to think that we want to feel pressurised into getting a wider audience. I don't care if people expect something different because if you played to the hype you would end up a gibbering wreck."

Now, however, he is shuffling off his broadcasting clothes and slipping into something for the stage with Out of His Box.

The show grew from a series of readings from Facts and Fancies, a collection of humorous essays he published in 1997. He says he felt guilty just reading bits from a book and would chat to and answer questions from the audience to vary the performance each night. Now he has dropped the reading entirely and performs a show that is 70 per cent prepared, with the rest coming from questions from the audience and topical jokes written that day.

It has toured once, to massive acclaim, and is now appearing for a mini four-date tour that takes in the Old Fire Station, Oxford, on Saturday. He feels he is finally earning his comedy spurs.

"I feel very lucky because I haven't had to do lots of hard nights on the cabaret circuit. I have been involved in broadcasting right from the start, so this is like I am a mature student because I didn't do it the first time around," he says.

"I did a lot of live stuff at university but fell too quickly into production. I am trying to gen up on it and it is fantastically enjoyable."

So it's all going a bit theatrical. Steve Coogan and Patrick Marber are currently on in the West End.

"And I'm at the Old Fire Station, Oxford," laughs Armando depreciatively.

% Armando Iannucci Out of His Box appears at the Old Fire Station, Oxford, tomorrow (Saturday) at 5pm and 7pm. Tickets are available from (01865) 794490

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