He's been a stand-up for over 30 years but Paul Merton says Scottish crowds are some of the warmest in the world.

Merton, best known as a panelist on Have I Got News For You, played his first Edinburgh Fringe in 1984 when only three shows featuring stand-ups were on the bill.

He has been a Fringe regular ever since, performing solo shows and gigs with his Impro Chums, and says he adores the festival and its crowds.

He said: "I love the Scottish crowds, they are fantastically warm.

"It's a great gig to do. We try to do the funniest show we can in the hour we have and enjoy ourselves as much as they enjoy themselves.

"I love coming out and the sun's shining and you have your first Guinness of the day after the show and it's been invigorating and you've done stuff that you've never done before and will never do again. It's always refreshing and, if you're a born show-off, in the end it's the best place to be."

The Impro Chums, aka Merton, his wife Suki Webster, Lee Simpson, Mike McShane and Richard Vranch, made their Fringe debut in 2004.

The group formed after an Indian entrepreneur went to Edinburgh in search of an act that could perform in his hotels.

The show is done completely off the cuff with the audience shouting out sketch suggestions for the Impro Chums to act out.

It might be the group's eleventh year at the festival but Merton says it's important they're "match fit" for each performance.

He said: "When you first start off it's very important to have warm-ups. Nowadays we don't bother so much because when we're not doing Edinburgh we're doing The Comedy Store so we're in match practice as it were.

"For us it's a bit like a tightrope walker saying 'well, the tightrope across Niagara Falls is only 500 yards and you can walk 500 yards'. He's not thinking about plummeting or the water, all he's thinking about is putting one foot in front of the other and an eye on the horizon. It's a bit like that with us, we don't think of it going wrong because it sort of can't go wrong in the end."

Merton, who was influenced by Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan and Monty Python's Flying Circus, says he decided to become a comic after visiting a circus in London as a child.

He said: "It made a big impact on me but it was the clowns with their white faces, big red boots, baggy trousers and the lasso of sausages that they throw around each other.

"I had never seen adults behave like that, I just thought it was astonishing that they did this. I was so captivated by it.

"The laughter of 3,000 people inside that indoor venue, I just fell in love. From then on I wanted to be part of the environment that created that laughter, whether it was as a writer, a performer or a director. I love being part of it."

The comedian says he does not keep up with new comedy but hopes others are not following in the footsteps of Keith Lemon.

He said: "I just don't know about modern comedy. I occasionally see things like Keith Lemon for a moment and think 'Oh God, that's awful' but then I'm sure he's an exception. I'm sure people aren't doing stuff like that, at least I hope they're not anyway. Lazy nonsense."

However, he says he does not think shocking subjects should be used by comics in the pursuit of laughter.

He said: "The only thing that bothers me is I heard one prominent TV comic was doing rape jokes and that's just so ugly and awful and dreadful. The fact that people would even consider doing it is kind of cynical.

"I think female comics talking about rape is another thing but male comic talking about it from the traditionally accepted for a long time male point of view that she was up for it and all that sort of stuff is just not of interest to me and I think it's insulting to the audience.

"You can say something that is very shocking and an audience will laugh because they're shocked, that's not to be mistaken for wit or flair or something uplifting."

Paul Merton's Impro Chums will perform at the Pleasance Courtyard from August 13-22.