Rising Star Jeff Innocent is a bad boy

Jeff Innocent could have joined the family firm ? his father was one of the 'East End gentry of armed robbers'. But he became the first of his clan to go to university, then spent years as a window dresser and now he's a stand-up comic. 'My brothers think I'm a bit of a ponce.'

His act plays big time on his Bethnal Green ancestry ? portraying himself as a 'face', the sort of geezer in Minder that George Cole always seemed to owe money to. The material is perhaps the sharpest social satire on the circuit ? both celebrating and ridiculing working-class culture. Take his routines about Butlins ? 'They just take a council estate and dump it near the seaside. Some of them are more like open prisons. I complained about the breakfast, it cost me two weeks' remission.' His favourite joke is that Canning Town is twinned with the Galapagos as life there developed as an entirely separate species.

Innocent's biggest strength is his stage authority. It's partly his age, partly because he's a ringer for Mussolini, which he brings up early in the set. 'It's like Nuremburg in here ? mind you, do I look like a fascist?' Normally laughter ensues, although he remembers one concerned woman shouting back: 'No you don't. Stop putting yourself down.' Not everyone gets the joke in this old leftie's act. 'I get blokes coming up saying ? I love the East End too, if only we can get rid of the Pakis ? and I think, did you not see my act?'

He's taking his first show to Edinburgh this year and then has a spot on Jim Davidson's new TV show. He's on after Boy George and before Julio Iglesias ? 'that's the craic for me'. But he won't be letting all this showbiz go to his head. There's forever a bit of the cockney villain in him ? 'I'm always connected. I still get invited to the funerals, if you know what I mean.' I'm not sure we want to.

Jeff Innocent, Fri 30 Jun & Sat 1 Jul, Jongleurs Battersea, 49 Lavender Gardens, SW11 (0870 787 0707)