After years of being a wandering singleton, Richard Herring has finally settled down with a wife and tiny baby.

His new show, Happy Now?, explores whether a move towards domestic bliss has finally brought him happiness.

The 48-year-old – known for his work with Stewart Lee in the 1990s and more recently for his hugely successful Leicester Square Podcast – has always been refreshingly honest and spoken in the past about his struggles with depression and anxiety.

He told us: “Having got to the point now that I have a wife and baby it’s about whether I’m finally happy after years of skirting around depression and skirting around being dissatisfied with my life.

“It’s about whether it’s possible to be happy and about what happiness means.

“It’s quite a sweet show, like a lot of my stuff it has this weird juxtaposition of some quite edgy stuff with quite a bit of heart.

“There’s a bit about becoming a dad later in life and the fears of that - there’s all the terrible things that could go wrong.”

The prolific stand-up is on his fourteenth tour since 2001, but he admits touring is not something he particularly enjoys.

With age and fatherhood it isn’t getting any easier – however the grind is worth it as he continues to attract audiences of hundreds of people across the country.

He said: “It’s always been a lonely thing touring, the older you get more it becomes about doing the show and going to the hotel.

“Everything around it is quite irritating and annoying - the travel is quite annoying, the hotel is quite annoying, I just get quite lonely.

“But after spending the last 15 years touring every year on my own, I’ve built up an audience, so it’s very satisfying going to a place and find there are people there coming to see me.

“I do really like my job and every night I try and make the show better than the night before.

“Being a dad I’m more aware people’s nights out are precious, so I try to give people as good a show as possible.”

While Herring has become one of the more recognisable faces on the UK comedy circuit, he concedes it is becoming increasingly difficult for new comedians to make an impact.

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However the internet presents new opportunities and ways for budding comics to get their work noticed, while there is a much wider range of talent than there used to be.

He said: “There are a lot more comedians [compared to when I first started].

“There are so many people trying to do it – I feel very sorry for new comedians because it’s much harder to get noticed.

“But there’s a lot more variety in comedy, when I started out it was very much largely men making jokes into a microphone, now it’s much more esoteric, more challenging and interesting.

“The internet has changed things a lot – there’s whole new arena for people to show their stuff off.”

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Herring, who cites the likes of Sara Pascoe and Nick Helm as the current comedians he most admires, says he has always wanted to make people laugh.

He said: “I think I wanted to be a clown when I was really little.

“To be a comedian I think you really have to want to do it, it’s a very odd job and it’s very hard to make it in the profession.

“You have to really love what you’re doing and I always loved people who were funny and I always loved making people laugh, so I think it was right in there innately in terms of what I wanted to do.”

And, from the sounds of things, his little girl might be following in his footsteps.

He added: “She’s a very disarming young person, she’ll smile at everyone and it’s an amazingly powerful thing when you see it.

“She’ll make everyone light up because she’s so happy.”

Richard Herring: Happy Now? is at Fairfield Halls in Croydon on March 10 and The Secombe in Sutton on April 29. Go to Fairfield.co.uk or suttontheatres.co.uk