TUDUR Owen’s set was one of a number of highlights of last year’s Llan Comedy Festival.

The 44-year-old funny man from the Isle of Anglesey makes a welcome return to the Llangollen stage alongside a number of other great Welsh comedians on Sunday.

A bilingual comedy writer and performer, Tudur has been performing stand up in both English and his first language, Welsh, for more than a decade.

He has written, presented and performed numerous television and radio shows including BAFTA Wales winning comedy series for S4C The PC Leslie Wynne Show and he currently hosts his own show on BBC Radio Cymru on Saturday afternoons.

Tudur, who has recently taken his stand up show the length and breadth of the UK, is excited about performing in front of a familiar audience.

“I am really looking forward to it,” he enthused. “I was there last year and it went really well so I’m hoping it will do again. We had a wonderful audience.”

While he may have found great success making people laugh, Tudur’s route into comedy was an unlikely one.

“When I was quite young really I had my first taste of being up on stage in Noson Lawen and various concerts we did on Anglesey,” he recalled. “When I was about 25 I got to work with a TV company in Caernarfon. I was floor manager and that allowed me to stand in front of an audience. I was giving them safety information and showing them where the fire exits were but I also tried to make them laugh.”

These days, Tudur loves nothing more than being in front of a live audience.

“It all started from the stand up,” he continued. “That opened doors for me in other parts of the entertainment industry – TV, writing as well.

“I’m still keen to keep doing stand up, it’s a really good foundation for any entertainer and I think, if I let it go, I would lose something. It gets under your skin as well – it’s become a passion for me. I will happily drive three or four hours to Sheffield to do a 20 minute set.”

Apart from performing at Llangollen, what else is Tudur up to this summer?

“I’m trying to cram my diary full of stand up,” he said “I’m hoping to get up to Edinburgh for a while and also get some writing done.”

This year’s Llangollen audience can expect a totally different set from Tudur.

“It’s going to be interesting,” he said. “I’m going to try out some new stuff that I’ve been writing. Last year’s audience was a split of local people from Llangollen, Wrexham and Corwen as well as people from further afield so I’ll talk about some Welsh stuff which some of the audience will know and hopefully it will educate the rest on our outlook on the world.”

Tudur will be performing as part of the Best of Welsh Comedy at Llangollen Pavilion on Sunday, June 12. He will be joined by Hayley Ellis, Dan Thomas and Kiri Pritchard-Mclean.

Also appearing at this weekend’s event are Irish funny-man, Ed Byrne, a regular on Live at the Apollo, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow and Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Canadian comedian Craig Campbell, who has most recently appeared on Russell Howard’s Good News.

They are joined by Isy Suttie, best known for playing IT geek Dobby in Channel 4’s sit-com Peep Show, Alun Cochrane, a no-nonsense comedian who specialises in funny nonsense and Gary Delaney, razor sharp one-liner comic, among many others

Tickets for the Llangollen Comedy Festival, taking place from June 9-12, are available from www.llancomedy.com.