SOMETIMES the best comedy can come from some dark places.

Essex comedian Terry Alderton knows all about this. You wouldn't necessarily know from his chirpy persona and affable demeanour, but Terry has plumbed the depths to create his comedy and even abandoned his old way of working entirely a few years ago.

As he gets ready for his 2012 tour of the UK, with dates in Southend and Colchester preceded by a slot at the Comedy Showcase night at Chelmsford's Civic Theatre on January 11, he sees making those changes a few years back as pivotal to the success he's having now.

A successful run at the Edinburgh Fringe this year, along with a Canadian tour and appearances on Michael Mcintyre's Comedy Road Show and Dave's One Night Stand, means it was a good 2011 for Terry but he says he won't just be simply taking his Edinburgh show on the road.

"The show is always evolving," he says. "It changed from the beginning of the Edinburgh run to the end and it'll change while I'm on tour.

"The great thing at Edinburgh was getting respect from my peers. A lot of them who I've known for years and who are now very famous, said some really great things about the show.

"It also had the reputation of being the show to see if you were off your head," says Terry of his act which combines voices, impressions, caricatures, physical pranks and the inner workings of his mind.

But despite the success he's enjoying, Terry says it's not been an easy.

"I had a really testing year last year, not just work-wise but in my home life too. So putting the show together has been quite a feat, a lot of emotion has gone to it."

"When I was doing Edinburgh, it was very insular at times, just me exploring my thoughts. I'll touch upon those things on the tour, but it'll be a different kind of show."

Such is the nature of Terry's show that he doesn't really see it as a conventional comedy routine any more.

"It's more like a piece of theatre," he says. "I don't really see myself as a stand-up, I'm more of a twisted entertainer. It's a bit weird trying to define yourself really but I'm doing interviews all day so I have to!"

So how and why did Terry get to where he is now? What prompted this way of working?

"I was in a place in stand-up I wasn't very comfortable with," he explains. "What I was doing was very middle of the road, I wasn't breaking any new ground.

"I had a falling apart and I had to get myself back together. I had to reinvent myself. I was in lots of debt, it was an enormous struggle, my wife was heavily pregnant, I just had to pick myself up.

"The easiest thing would have been to just hack away, doing all the middle of the road stuff, but I couldn't do it anymore.

"That's when I came up with the voices idea."

On his website, Terry recounts the story of his reinvention, recalling how he'd had an epiphany after a gig in Manchester at the end of 2005.

On the long drive home he decided he needed to change. Drawing on a small part of his existing act that wasn't actually played for laughs, he came up with the idea of using different voices to represent different parts of his personality, his alter egos.

For the time being, Terry carried on doing his old act but says he was "mentally spiralling out of control."

One night, he decided that was it. He broke the cardinal rule of performing by turning his back on the audience and started doing a routine using different voices which "told various truths about the show, my material, the audience..."

It was a daring thing to do but he went off stage encouraged by the approval of a fellow comedian and determined to carry on in this new direction.

As he says on his website: "The great thing about this whole device for me is I'm still often unsure how to use it and that makes for moments of magic, danger, discomfort and sometimes it misses the mark altogether."

Rochford-born Terry says the voices device has served him well ever since and has even got the thumbs up from Eddie Izzard, who mimicked Terry's act at the Comedy Store a couple of years ago.

As with any performer who puts themselves on the line, Terry says he has times of doubt, but has been encouraged by inspirational moments along the way.

Once, it was through reading brilliant US comedian Steven Wright's biography and again through a scene in Ken Loach's film Looking For Eric in which football icon Eric Cantona tells the main character that it's worth making a 100 mistakes for one beautiful pass.

"I thought that was a beautiful philosophy," says Terry. "That's how I try to think about my stand up now. I might stand with my back to the audience and just bark for two minutes, but I'm hoping something will come to me.

"It's risky to work like that but it's the only way you get moments of greatness," he says.

"You never get that without taking risks."

Terry Alderton appears at the Comedy Showcase at the Civic Theatre, Chelmsford on January 11 then brings his latest show to the Palace Theatre, Southend (01702 351135), on Friday, January 20 and to Colchester Arts Centre (01206 500900) on Friday and Saturday, January 27-28. Find out more about Terry at www.terryalderton.com