Rob Auton: Comedian gears up for homecoming gigs in York, Hull, Leeds and Hebden Bridge

“How are we supposed to know what to do in life at all?” asks the comedian, born and raised near Pocklington and speaking from his flat in Hackney, London.

“It's right in front of your face all the time, and you're just making these decisions, going: well, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. You see people who are really young, who have gone to certain universities, and then they're getting ito like the comedy scene there. And by the time they're 22 or 23, they're in,” he adds, reflecting on his own relatively late introduction to the industry at 27.

Auton, though, at the start simply “excited myself with my own words. And I was like, oh, I wonder if I can make anyone else feel anything with this. I didn't have a clue where to put it, and to be honest, I'm still figuring it out.”

It is a modest way of describing his achivements: having amassed a following with seven stand-up tours and 10 shows mostly on very specific themes such exploring the colour yellow, the sky, faces, water, sleep, hair, talking, time and crowds, Auton has earned critical acclaim, sold out rooms at Edinburgh, won a British Podcast Award and performed in top television programmes such as Rose Matafeo’s Starstruck.

With his latest tour, The Rob Auton Show, he is turning his attention to himself with a more autobiographical routine, so it is fitting that among his dates in the region is a homecoming gig at The Crescent in York on Wednesday.

He’s looking forward to it but says “there's nothing worse than overconfidence to make you fall on your face.

"I will go into those (Yorkshire shows) absolutely focused and know the fact that if I trip up on a key word of the best joke in the show, then the response to it, that laugh is going to be half,” he says.

"My standards of the show that I want to give to people have got higher and now I feel like…” he trails off. “I guess I'm proud of what I've made and I'm looking forward to sharing it with people.”

Auton grew up in Barmby Moor near Pocklington, in the East Riding, going Woldgate School. He went on to study an art foundation course in York before heading to university Newcastle for a graphic design degree.

Later, his father, a plumber, knew someone who worked at a business in York whose relative ran an advertising firm in London.

“So I got into advertising and then the creative director said that he ran a poetry night and he was having a fireworks party, and there was going to be a bit poetry. I'd be writing some stuff down in my notebook and that was my first ever gig.”

Exploring the memories and feelings of his daily life, Auton’s new show follows his previous work on themes said to have earned him a cult including The Yellow Show, The Hair Show and The Time Show. Dubbed “the Fringe’s comedian laureate” in a piece by the British Comedy Guide, Auton had a clip of him performing on Stand-Up Central With Rob Delaney go viral with more than 11 million views on Facebook alone.

Then there are broadcast credits for appearances on the latest series of Starstruck, Miracle Workers, The End of the ******* World, The Russell Howard Hour, Cold Feet, Random Acts, Stewart Lee: Unreliable Narrator, and radio programmes such Front Row, The Sara Cox Show, The Jonathan Ross Show, Craig Charles on BBC Radio 6 and Afternoon Edition with Nihal Arthanayake.

Meanwhile, The Rob Auton Daily Podcast was announced as the British Podcast Awards 2020 Gold Winner for best daily podcast and, years before, in 2013, he won the Dave Funniest Joke of The Fringe award ("I heard a rumour that Cadbury is bringing out an oriental chocolate bar. Could be a Chinese Wispa”).

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In 2021, HarperCollins’ Mudlark released his latest book, I Strongly Believe in Incredible Things, comprising his poetic prose, short stories and biro drawings celebrating everyday wonders. He had previously published three collections of writing and drawing, Take Hair, Petrol Honey and In Heaven The Onions Make You Laugh, with Burning Eye Books, and released a spoken word album At Home With Rob on Scroobius Pip’s record label Speech Development Records.

Television is an area he would like to work in more. “Doing stand-up can be quite solitary. You get on stage and it's people's night out,” he says. “Whereas when doing the TV stuff - I haven't done loads but what I have done - I felt like everyone was at work and everyone who was there was really on it and...basically, no one's eating crisps on set during a take” (he earlier joked that he recently had to ban this at a show in Colchester).

So, around 15 years on from that first poetry gig, Auton is now finally starting to recognise that his status as a working performer is in a good place.

"I'm really thankful that it's happening with this show, because I've been working hard doing gigs since 2007, I kind of feel almost like I’m ready for people to see me now. I mean, even when I was doing my show in 2012 that was about the colour yellow, I did Edinburgh and was like, ‘I'm ready, get me on Jonathan Ross now’,” he says.

But ultimately, back then he “just didn't feel ready and it's like, I've been trying to build this like a solid foundation that is built from work and getting rail replacement buses and just slogging it. It feels like a hill for me to stand on and live on instead of dying on.”

The Rob Auton Show comes to The Crescent in York on Wednesday; the Mortimer Suite of Hull City Hall on Thursday; The Wardrobe in Leeds on Friday; and a sold-out show at Hebden Bridge Trades Club on Saturday. For tickets, visit: www.robauton.co.uk