LA-raised, London-based standup Desiree Burch first came to the UK in 2014 and now regards it as home.

A Yale graduate, she worked as a dominatrix before turning to comedy – basing her 2017 routine around that work in Manhattan during the early 2000s.

She’s back with a new show, this time about a drug-fuelled day at the hip Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert which she brings to Carlisle next Thursday.

Although she now lives in south London she has to make annual trips back to the US to renew her visa.

“I regard here as my home now,” she says. “Though I’m trying to figure out the differences between the regional accents.

“Scottish is the first one I learned because of Edinburgh Fringe. Newcastle can be difficult – people in Newcastle are wild and just come up to you in the street to talk, which is unusual.”

Breaking into the US comedy scene is difficult – so difficult that she decided to try her luck on this side of the Atlantic.

“I moved here initially because I was in a relationship but I found there was more of a career in comedy to be had here,” she says.

“In America you don’t get paid and you have to live in poverty.”

She has appeared in The Mash Report, Live At The Apollo, Mock The Week and the Netflix series Flinch.

She reckons we value comedians more because we drink so much as a nation: “You have more of a drinking culture which fuels the arts.

“You go out for a drink and want to be entertained.”