Awww, Jim Smallman wants you to be his fwend!

1. What is your show about?
I'm 34 and don't have enough friends, so I thought I'd try and convince audiences to both come and see me do a show AND become my friends. I want a new best friend by the end of the Fringe run. I will find one. I will.

2. Describe it in 3 words.
Silly, friendly, idiotic.

3. What is your favourite part of the show?
Genuinely getting to meet the audience. I greet them and give them name stickers before it starts, and I'm chatty as heck anyway. I'm serious about being friendly, so if I send them away smiling and liking me even a tiny bit then that's the best bit.

4. Complete this sentence: if you like ... making friends with heavily tattooed lunatics who are obsessed with video games, Star Wars, wrestling and Lana Del Rey ... then, hell, you might just like my show.

5. If your show were a dog, what type of dog would it be?
Old English Sheepdog. Friendly, loyal, not the cleverest, normally covered in paint.

6. If you could change one thing about the Fringe, what would it be?
I'd quite like to make advertising a bit cheaper. When I first arrived I genuinely thought that there was only eight shows on at the whole Fringe, such is the monopoly that some people can afford (through their hard work and popularity, admittedly) to have on advertising. I had to sell a kidney to afford eight posters, and I've only found one!

7. Name 3 other shows you'd recommend seeing.
Brendon Burns "Home Stretch Baby", Chris Stokes "An Opera Written on Napkins", Danny Buckler "The Phantom".

8. What would you be doing this summer if you weren't in Edinburgh?
Working at a load of music festivals, earning some money, finishing writing my first novel that I'm working on, not missing my daughter's ninth birthday (sorry Amelia).

9. Who were your best friend and nemesis at school?
Best friend was a girl called Amy, who is still one of my best friends now – the show is of course based on my best male friend not being able to play with me anymore. My nemesis was my head teacher, who I was a complete pain in the arse for – in theory I was quite bright, but preferred drinking and drugs to hard work, and once turned up for an assembly that Jeremy Beadle was attending (yes, I shook the hand) with a home-made blazer with "No Future" written on the back with bleach. I was a proper emo dickhead.

10. Make your pitch for anyone reading this who is thinking of becoming your friend. The floor is yours ...
Come and meet me. Watch my show. You'll soon learn that I'm a very impressionable idiot that you can mould to be your own. Want to play video games? Let's do it. Want to hang out after my show? Let's go. Fancy going on holiday with me next summer? Let's do that, although it'll probably be in the UK as the Fringe business has wiped out my bank account. Honestly, I'm a nice chap. I hug well. I smell pretty fresh. I'll let you borrow my Kindle. My sister is pretty, I'll put a word in for you. Please. Just like me, ok? I will beg.

• Jim Smallman – Let's Be Friends is on at 4.30pm at the Gilded Balloon