TIM Vine is a punslinger, a punmeister. The Surrey-born comedian, best-known for his pun-tastic show, is coming to Burnley Mechanics at the end of the month and is looking forward to it.

"I'm looking forward to telling the same joke I told last time I was at Burnley," said Tim.

"I went on stage and said 'Welcome to the Mechanics. In fact, welcome whatever your job is'."

Tim is famed for his puns but, unlike most puns, his are actually funny.

"I think puns get a bad name because often people do them so badly," he said.

"People think it's OK to groan at a bad pun but I really hate groaning.

"I can't stand it when you tell a joke and people go 'Uhhhh'.

"That's probably a good thing because it stops me letting the quality slip on my shows, to avoid groans.

"I've had a whole theatre groaning before now, though - it was like medieval torture chamber.

"I'm not only about puns though. I suppose I play up to it a bit because it's nice to have a thing isn't it and I don't think there's another comedian around who does puns.

"I also do long stories and chat to the audience and maybe throw in the odd song - it's not just quickfire puns for an hour.

"This tour is a brand new show of material but similar humour.

"Last time I was here I was saying 'Velcro? What a rip off'.

"This time it'll be 'Three cheers for rap. Hip hop...' "It's just me being silly in front of an audience."

In 2004 Tim broke the Guinness World Record for the most jokes told in an hour with 499, beating the previous record of 362.

Each joke told had to get a laugh from the paying audience to count towards the record. He held the record until May 2005.

"I thought I'd hold it for a few years at least but then some American came and did 676 jokes in an hour," said Tim.

"I'm not planning to challenge him. I don't want to turn comedy into a sport and become obsessed by it. That's not what it's about."

More recently Tim came to the attention of a wider audience when he starred on BBC1's Not Going Out alongside real-life mate Blackburn-born Lee Mack.

"Not Going Out was fun to make," said Tim.

"The best thing is that Lee does all the writing.

"He locks himself away somewhere and comes up with it all then I turn up at the 11th hour and say the lines.

"Before we shot the last series all the cast got together round a table and Lee presented the first script that he'd been working on for six months for the first read=through.

"It was a big moment for Lee. He read through it, came to the end and waited for a response. Apparently I looked up and said: 'What day is it?' "I wasn't being rude. I think I just became aware towards the end of the reading that I didn't know what day it was!"

Being on primetime TV has meant Tim is probably recognised more, but he claims not to notice half the time.

"It's really hard to tell," he said. "When I'm with a mate they tend to notice it more than I do.

"If someone does recognise me they're usually never quite sure how they know me - it's not like I'm Tiger Woods.

"I once made the terribly embarrassing mistake of telling someone I was on TV. This guy insisted he knew me but I told him that no, he didn't.

"Once we'd exhausted every way he could have known me I said 'Well actually I'm a comedian, you might recognise me from TV.' "It turned out that I actually had met him before. It was so embarrassing. Never ever again."

  • See Tim Vine at Burnley Mechanics on Wednesday, April 30. For tickets call 01282 664400.