Before we speak, Andrew Lawrence tweets that he wants everyone who says ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’ to get spat on by a meteorologist. He complains that the man queuing in front of him chats to the person behind the till and now he has to make an effort as well. I am slightly scared.

His show, There Is No Escape, has been touring since the Edinburgh Fringe and comes to the Cambridge Junction later this month. I ask him what it's about, expecting the answer to be doom, gloom and a bleak outlook on the world. "I feel like everyone’s got something in their life they want to escape from, maybe it’s a job, maybe it’s a domestic situation, maybe it’s just the town they live in…but everyone’s got something they’d like to get away from." Surely Lawrence, who earlier this year proclaimed to the nation that "death is coming for you, and when it comes it’s bringing indignity", isn’t doing a feel-good show, offering a haven from the depressing reality of life, instead of forcing people to confront it? "If you’re offering any entertainment, that’s a form of escape really", he concedes.

Since his first solo stand-up offering in 2006, Lawrence has amassed performances at top London venues and on a variety of TV comedy shows, including Live At The Apollo and Stand Up For The Week. So where next? Not a regular slot on Mock The Week: "Panel shows become more about being a TV personality than being a comedian. I couldn’t name a single comedian who enjoys them." Equally, he’s glad to have outgrown the circuit: "When you do twenty minutes you’ve got to hit the ground running, everything’s very short, very slick. Over two hours you can take your time." This surprises me: Lawrence’s delivery feels distinctly fast-paced and compact. He attributes this to Edinburgh training: "An audience might have been to see four or five shows in one day, they’ll sit in a venue with no air conditioning, there’s not a lot of energy in that room."

In Cambridge, though, he may not need to inject much energy, as heated debates about Footlights rage on. "Comedy’s like a lot of other things in that you can be good and successful by working really hard", and he admits that perhaps Cambridge leaves comics better prepared in that regard. But while clubs reward merit, TV is easier to crack. "It’s not just comedians from Cambridge, there’s agents and producers and commissioners: the network is undeniable," he says.

I’m curious though, as to why he uses a miserable persona to make comedy. Nothing is off-limits: "The contract that everyone enters into in comedy is that nothing on stage is to be taken seriously, everything is intended as humour." But Lawrence is wary of being defined by one type of material. "This will be my ninth solo show in Edinburgh this summer, and this is my fourth tour now, and that’s a lot of different themes I’ve been talking about. But people want to pigeonhole you." Successful comedy, he insists, is natural and instinctive, even when it comes to dealing with hecklers: "I always improvise that, I think it works much better. I’ve just always wanted to do stand-up comedy, that’s the only thing I’ve wanted to do", he says. Under the persona, it appears, is a comedy purist.

Andrew Lawrence will be performing his show There Is No Escape at The Cambridge Junction on January 24th.