HAVE you heard the one about the stand-up comedian touring the country doing shows for nothing?

No, it is not a joke - that is exactly what New York comedian Lewis Schaffer is doing with his Free Until Famous tour which comes to Burnley Mechanics next month.

Tickets for the show are free with the audience being asked at the end to make a contribution if they felt Lewis deserved it.

“You could definitely say it’s a risk,” said Lewis. “But so far I’ve not been going home hungry.

“I honestly think there aren’t many comedians who could do this. You have to be sufficiently fearless to attempt it. Really good comedians wouldn’t do it and those who aren’t much good couldn’t do it.”

Now living in London, Lewis has had a successful weekly residency at the Leicester Square Theatre with the show and plaudits from some of the country’s top stand-ups.

“I admit I’m not that well know outside London,” said Lewis. “You have to be on TV to achieve any sort of mass awareness these days as a comedian.

“But I’m hoping the tour will get me out there and I’d like to think that next time round people would actually pay for a ticket in advance to see me.”

The ambitious free tour has led to some criticism from some parts of the comedy world.

“I have heard some comedians criticising me saying it undermines them charging for shows.

“But I don’t buy that. I’ve chosen to do this and it’s up to me to give the audience an interesting evening that they feel that have got their money’s worth from.”

Reviews of Lewis’s shows often feature words such as dark and disconcerting as well as hilarious.

“I’ve got to say I’m not really sure how it all work,” said Lewis who was one of the top stand-ups on New York’s comedy circuit before moving to the UK “You could say that the shows are completely scripted but they are totally different every time. Once I get on stage I tend to forget the script completely.

“I suppose I’m a New York comedian of old whatever that might mean. I can appreciate that an audience won’t really know what they’re letting themselves in for at first but I’ve found that mass group therapy is a very successful way to do comedy.”

Audiences are key to Lewis’ shows.

“Of course they are. You respond to an audience in different ways depending on what they are giving off. They are unpredictable, so am I - that’s why the evenings work so well.

“You get some comedians like Ross Noble who are brilliant and riffing off the audience all night and others who will stick to the same script word for word.

“Both are very different but neither approach is wrong.

“I tend to look on stand-up as a bit of a participatory sport. I like to think my shows are unique, that they are both painful and joyous and perhaps a little weird.”

Lewis Schaffer, Burnley Mechanics, Saturday, February 7. Free tickets available from the box office on a first-come-first-served basis. Contact 01282 664400.