Frustrated Dylan plans first book

Dylan Moran is planning to write a novel, because he's growing frustrated with stand-up.

The comic – who has already announced the end of his sitcom Black Books – says live work holds few challenges now.

He said: "The things you can do easily, you have no respect for. The things you can't do, you love."

The 32-year-old comic added that he is drawn to writing because it holds less of the unpredictability of stand-up, where he cannot always control the audience's reaction.

He told the Sunday Times: "One night, something wonderful happens, and you don't entirely know why.

"What I'm finding now is that I want to control every factor, and I can't. So I'm inevitably becoming drawn to books, where you control everything

"What it boils down to is this: are you going to spend the rest of your life doing 90 minutes about being a grumpy fucker? And I'm bored with that, essentially. I want a solo project. Something I won't be able to blame anybody else for if it goes wrong.

"Anyway, it's inevitable. I'm a comedian, of course I'm going to write a fuckiing novel. There are comedians being born and finding letters from publishers waiting in the hospital."

Sunday Times interview

Published: 2 May 2004