HE is known as one of the funniest men in medicine who performs to sell-out crowds.

Now the Royal Bolton Hospital consultant, Dr Kevin Jones whose stand-up routines — which draw on the darker side of medicine — have become legendary, is to take to the stage at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world.

He said: "This is my first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe and highly likely to be my last.

"I am extremely excited about it. I have been on the After-Dinner Speaking circuit for 30 years but my One Man Shows are a completely different kettle of fish. I have put these on in the past both at the Albert Halls in Bolton and at Bury Met and raised a lot of money for charity.

"I have been to the Fringe as a spectator in the past and it is a fantastic festival for comedy. I just thought, why not give it a go. At the very least, it will really annoy my children when I can say 'I have appeared at the Fringe – what have you done ?' I am striking a blow for parents and old people everywhere."

He added: I am certainly not doing it for money. It will cost me an awful lot more than I can make on ticket sales. Neither am I doing it to further my comedy career which is approaching its end. I am doing it just for the excitement and the challenge. Plus, I know it will be great fun. I am bound to meet up with old friends and also get a chance to see some real comedy legends in action."

The show entitled 'Telling the Wrong Man he had Cancer and Other Hilarious Stories' is on from August 20 to 25 at 6.50pm at the grand Symposium Hall of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh.

"I had to give the show a title that grabs attention, " said Dr Jones, who lives in Harwood, "it finishes with a true story when I had a case of mistaken identity in my clinic and a patient left for home after being wrongly told he had terminal cancer.

"In fact it got written up in the British Medical Journal as a lesson for other doctors. It was not funny at all at the time and caused me a huge amount of stress. Luckily, there was a happy ending and I have made it a funny story by focusing on the panic I went through trying to track the patient down and give him the correct diagnosis."

He added: "The show examines the humour that can be found in hospital medicine and is a mixture of medical jokes, observations and apocryphal stories but mainly true stories which show that even in the darkest of situations you can find things to laugh about.

"I have been a doctor for over 30 years and the main joy of the job is the interaction with your patients. You learn a great deal about humanity by being a doctor and to watch how your patients and their loved ones react to adversity and eventually come through it is a privilege which also teaches you a great deal about yours."

Dr Jones said that he knows that the competition is huge at the festival, adding: "I know it is a good show.

"The competition is immense and nobody will have heard of me. I am setting up a website to try and show people a little of what they might be getting and persuade them to buy tickets. My show is advertised on the Fringe website and I will need to produce posters and fliers and go up and down the streets of Edinburgh forcing people to come and watch. I might need to offer them a free medical exam to entice them!"

Medicine is Dr Jones' first love is medicine and got into after-dinner speaking by accident. He did a lot speaking and performing whilst at university and as a junior doctor he was a medical officer for a Rugby League team at the weekends. And at a testimonial dinner he offered to get up and tell a few medical stories which were more popular than the booked speakers! The rest, as they say is history.

"I would never do it full-time. I have done lots of big events but I guess the biggest was when the Mail on Sunday took me to Geneva to speak to the Chief Executives of the major companies at the International Motor Show.

"The head of Toyota didn’t speak English so fell asleep as soon as I started. Probably a good judge of my performance.

"Last December, I performed at a corporate event held inside a huge tent in the moat of the Tower of London. There were six hundred people there and I went on to warm them up for Michael McIntyre. He was brilliant of course and I managed to get a photo with him," said Dr Jones, "I have spoken at hundreds of events in the Bolton area over the years plus my One Man Shows so a lot of my patients have seen me perform. It doesn’t seem to bother them. They will often comment at the beginning of the consultation and then at the end will say “You’re not going to mention any of this in your act are you, Doc ?

"They laugh as they say it and I reassure them that the Hippocratic Oath forbids it. I think Bolton folk have a healthy and realistic approach to life and death which is evident in their sense of humour."

Tickets for the show can be bought at https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/telling-the-wrong-man-he-had-cancer-and-other-hilarious-stories.

For a flavour of what audiences can expect visit — www.drkevinjones.co.uk — but be warned there is some bad language and adult themes used in the showreel clips .