I'M often asked why I gave up the law to do a lesser well paid job - so it's a bit weird posing the same question to someone else.

That person is Scottish comedian Susan Calman, who since giving up on her 'well paid job', has taken the UK comedy scene by storm.

While I'm still questioning my decision more than 20 years ago, radio shows such as Susan Calman Is Convicted and The News Quiz, television panel shows and sitcoms like Fresh Meat and Rab C Nesbitt plus a massive UK tour, tells me Susan made the right choice in her career.

"As an associate in a fancy law firm you do earn a lot of money," she says, "but I found most lawyers lived within their means and had no more money than I might as a comedian at the end of the week. I just asked myself the question can I live on less money, and I could."

Although Susan is quick to heap praise on her wife.

"I couldn't have done it without her support," she adds. "I was very lucky to have my wife there for me. Also I always thought I could go back to law if it didn't work out but I knew if I didn't do it I would have regretted it for the rest of my life."

Born in Glasgow, Susan studied at the city's university where, as an undergraduate, she heard a lecture by Sister Helen Prejean, who campaigns against the death penalty in America and who features in the film Dead Man Walking (she’s played by Susan Sarandon).

Inspired, she applied for and won a scholarship to travel to North Carolina to study the death penalty. And so, aged 20, she found herself walking onto Death Row 'to talk to a man who killed several women. Just me and him'.

That wasn’t the only eventful episode. Later, in a Holiday Inn in Virginia, she had a pistol pointed at her under the table, held by a prison guard accused of having had sex with a prisoner. On a visit to a trailer park, a shotgun was waved in her direction.

Back home, the reality of life as a Scottish lawyer was a little different.

Susan adds: "When I started in 1997 to 1999 it was at the time of the Dot.Com boom, all that Y2K nonsense, so the work was enjoyable at first.

"You have high hopes for what you’re going to do as a lawyer," she continues, "and then you end up doing a telecoms line for the contract for the Edinburgh trams."

Today, the city's shambolic transport infrastructure is the sort of thing she might poke topical fun at on The News Quiz. She’s a regular voice alongside fellow panellists such as Jeremy Hardy, Rebecca Front, Andy Hamilton and Mark Steel.

Susan speaks warmly about Sandi Toksvig, former presenter of The News Quiz, new presenter of QI, co-founder of the Women’s Equality Party and a mentor of sorts. 'Generous', 'tremendous' and 'brilliant' are all wheeled out. Calman is equally effusive about The News Quiz itself.

"It’s still the show that’s dearest to my heart because it’s where I started with Sandi," she says.

Since her breakthrough year at the 2012 Fringe, when she performed This Lady’s Not For Turning Either, a show about equal marriage, Susan has been in demand and in some rather unusual places, like children's telly, where she has presented shows on the CBBC channel like the hugely popular Top Class, described by Susan as 'University Challenge for kids'.

She says: “I like doing kids’ TV, mainly so that my niece can see me on the television, but also as a way of showing young girls that being a human being is not necessarily what you see in magazines.

"I grew up watching Number 73 with Sandi Toksvig and that was an incredible inspiration to me."

It's a similar approach Susan took when writing her first book which was published last year.

Cheer Up Love: Adventures In Depression With The Crab Of Hate, deals with the causes and effects of depression and is a candid and often laugh-out-loud-funny account of Susan's long battle with it. The crab of hate being her crustacean version of the more familiar black dog.

She says: “What I didn't want to do was write one of those tragic life story books that you see, which are just heartbreaking. I want people to enjoy reading the book and what I've found about comedy is that if you make people laugh you can tell them things that might otherwise be uncomfortable.

“So I very much wanted to make it a fun book, but also an honest book because to try and explain exactly what the depression is like, you have to be quite honest about it.”

Now following a total sell-out Fringe run, before the Fringe had even started, Susan is touring her new show, The Calman Before the Storm.

Setting the record straight, to give it to the man (whoever he is), the show initially was her own celebration of ten years in the business theming it around the things people have said about her over the years, culled from reviews, interviews and social media.

"So much has changed in the world," she says, "it's changed quite a bit since Edinburgh but essentially it's marking the tenth anniversary of becoming a stand-up.

"When people come and see my shows, they're expecting the person from QI or Radio 4 so this is my way of perhaps turning that preconception on its head.

"There's no question that when I started all those years ago I just wanted to make people laugh and that's still the same today."

Susan Calman: The Calman Before The Storm

Mercury Theatre,

Balkerne Gate, Colchester.

May 21. 7.30pm.

£17. 01206 573948.

www.mercurytheatre.co.uk