Why do I keep doing the Fringe? It’s a question I have asked myself a lot in recent years.

The Fringe is expensive, exhausting and can really toy with your emotions if you let it. I first went there in 2010 when I was part of a show with Adam Larter and Mark Stephenson imaginatively called The Very Best Of Brice, Stephenson And Larter,  or The Very Best of Stephenson, Brice And Larter, depending on whether you were given a flyer or looked in the brochure.

On the first day I remember saying to Adam and Mark, ‘Shall we just cancel today and start tomorrow?’ such was my dread of performing. They obviously said, ‘No, we’re doing the show.’ Which made sense, even back then it cost thousands to be at the Fringe with registration fees, accommodation fees, and just living up there.

In the intervening years I have always performed the first show, but the dread has never left me.

And therein lies the reason why I keep coming back. The dread is fierce, but is immediately replaced with the excitement and exhilaration of being on stage. I love it. Performing and making people laugh has been a constant thrill for me. But my reasons for doing it have certainly changed.

I always wanted to be a comedian. My friends at school all played football but I didn’t get it. Those with older siblings were introduced to music. I had jazz and Phil Collins from my parents (good stuff, sure). But when I saw Harry Enfield and Chums and then Lee Evans and old Ken Dodd I was transfixed. I couldn’t get enough of it. I was eight.

Cut to 13 years later. I’m at uni. I met Adam ‘The Business’ Larter. He was putting tails on things (don’t ask). We had a mutual love of comedy and for three years he kept saying we should perform. I was too scared.

Cut to 2010. I’ve been on the open mic circuit for 18 months. Time to go to the Fringe. Madness.

Covid years notwithstanding I have only missed one Fringe since 2010. I did my first solo show in 2014, a character comedy show called Eric Meat Gets The Chop. I got 4 stars from Chortle and off the back of that I got an agent.

It was meant to be my last show before I moved to Chichester to do a PGCE and be a teacher. But that all went out the window.

Then I did five shows thinking I would hit the big time. I didn’t and my agent dropped me. But without that agent I’d be a teacher in Chichester and most likely very depressed. That agent changed my life.

So, 2019 back to the Fringe and time to get another agent. I have dropped the character comedy and I’m trying to marry honest storytelling with crowdwork. It worked, a new agent secured (Hi, Lisa!). The big time was looming again.

Then lockdown.

But every cloud. I did two years of therapy, moved in with my girlfriend (Hi, Beth!) and wrote a show all about it. My most honest, silly and heartfelt show to date I Tried To Be Funny, But You Weren’t Looking. It was also my most successful. I went to Soho Theatre, Estonia, Australia, all over the UK and got an award nomination and good reviews.

But where do you go when you’ve told everyone everything?

The answer is either deeper or somewhere else entirely. I tried going deeper, but there’s a reason I put all that stuff away. I don’t want to think about it, let alone tell strangers about it.

So, my goal is fun. Have a nice time. Make people laugh.

I want to make a show I would want to watch. And my favourite thing to watch is crowdwork.

There’s a trend at the moment - or a clever marketing technique, some would say - where comedians upload clips of themselves doing crowdwork to lure people into seeing their shows. I love most of the clips. I’ve been to the shows and there’s been little to no crowdwork. That’s false advertising. Give me the good stuff.

The magical thing about crowdwork is that it can’t be repeated. But I think that we need to go further than that - it shouldn’t be repeated. It should live and die in the moment. That’s what makes it special. That’s what makes it exciting.

And that’s what I find fun. Thrilling.

When it works, it’s beyond brilliant. It’s transcendent. The flipside, of course, is when it doesn’t work, it’s hard. But that’s the gamble. And it’s a gamble I will take every day for three weeks in a row.

Yes, please!

In the past I wouldn’t have dared do this. I was trying to make something I thought would make me famous. But between turning 40, falling in love, getting a dog and a mortgage, I realise being famous wouldn’t solve any of the things I thought it would. 

Love is the answer. And that’s all you really need. And I have that. I have a very nice life at home. It’s pretty boring, to tell the truth. But I love it. It’s basically paradise.

So, time to find my kicks. An hour of crowdwork. 

Now I’m terrified. I might cancel the first show, actually. Yeah. I’m proper scared now. What the fuck am I doing? Why am I doing this? Help me.

Fuck that. Help me have a good time. See you at the Fringe.

• Ali ​Brice: This Is The Way We Brush​ Our Teeth is on at Hoots @ Potterow at 7.40pm from August 7.