'I missed out on meeting De Niro'

Irish comedian Dara Ó Briain is famous for his stand-up routines and for being host of BBC Two's Mock The Week. He's been talking about the row over Jonathan Ross & Russell Brand's Radio 2 phone messages, missing out on meeting Robert De Niro and his latest DVD.

Mock The Week has been really successful for you, what's it like filming it and then touring afterwards?

Mock The Week has just finished its sixth series. The new DVD is a recording of the tour we are currently just finishing. Everyone on Mock The Week is a touring comic. They gather together during the summer because nobody goes to theatres during the summer. It's the only time we're all free.

The best way to do comedy is just to let your imagination fly, see what comes out and then later reign it back in again Dara Ó Briain on being a stand-up comedian

Then we scatter all over the country and do theatres everywhere. And we crisscross and leave notes for each other in theatre dressing rooms all over the country and text each other going, 'Oh, I was in Nottingham last night. Good luck in Sheffield tonight'. That kind of stuff.

Don't you just end up laughing all the time on Mock The Week?

You're supposed to laugh all the time. Ideally you end up laughing all the time. Except of course when we're properly shocked by things that are inappropriate and shouldn't be said to the nation.

By the way I must remember to send a copy of the DVD to David Davies MP, just to check with him to see if it's OK. Just to clear with him, to see if he feels it's appropriate to broadcast to the nation.

Is there anyone who hasn't appeared on Mock The Week that you'd like on the show?

Dara Ó Briain studied maths and theoretical physics at university

Bush. He's funny. Bush would be very free in January. I'd have David Davies MP on. David Davies MP, who for the last two weeks has been making hay about comedians in quotation marks, well there's a chair there for you David.

Are there boundaries on stage about what you can joke about? Do you have to be careful, especially after the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand case?

You're constantly doing that. Live you can get away with a helluva lot because you can explain yourself immediately if it goes hideously wrong.

But in studio we just do whatever we do and then somebody steps in and goes, 'Ah, no'. There are lawyers, for example, watching Mock Then Week when we record it, putting Xs next to things going, 'There's absolutely no way that's going out'.

Live At The Apollo is replacing Jonathan Ross' show. Is that a good replacement?

Anything that sticks more stand-up on the television I'm in favour of. Because stand up didn't appear on the television for about 10 years. You couldn't get just a man with a microphone telling jokes in the television.

It'll be no comfort to me that Live At The Apollo goes out if it's not my Live At The Apollo. I was due to be on Jonathan Ross. Robert De Niro was on it. In my head I had my arm round Robert De Niro. I am in many ways the real victim of this situation here. I was going to meet Robert De Niro and the Kings Of Leon.

And you discover a naked man on the DVD, is that right?

Mock The Week began in 2005 and is now in its sixth series

I don't discover the naked man in a hotel room. I have a knock on the door and there's a naked man at the door. I'm genuinely in a hotel in Newcastle, there was a knock on the door and I open it and there was a naked man standing there. It was a true story.

What is it like working off audience banter during a live show?

It's generally a pleasure. A lot of comedians don't work off the audience because they have their show and they want to do their show and they want to entertain the crowd. I regard the audience as a resource. I regard the audience as an enormous storytelling tool.

If you ask them a question, you're going to get better stuff off them than you could ever possibly imagine. In the past we've had a Milky Bar kid in the audience, we've had a man whose wife was kidnapped by a limo driver in Bridlington and he never thought to ask her why.

Dara Ó Briain was talking to Newsbeat entertainment reporter Melanie Hill.