In 2008, comedian Tom Wrigglesworth was threatened with arrest after organising whip-round on a Virgin Trains' service to try and help pay for a pensioner's £115 wrong ticket fine. He made headlines, caused Virgin to change their policy, and went on to turn the story into an award-winning sell-out stand-up show. He also performed the show as a one-of special on Radio 4, and that led onto a full series about other jobsworths, which was broadcast on Radio 4 last month.

Tom is currently on tour with his latest Edinburgh Festival sell-out show, Tom Wrigglesworth's Nightmare Dream Wedding...

Hi Tom. Would it be fair to say, encountering that train guard kind of changed your life...

I guess so, yeah. Meeting him certainly has had a knock on effect. What is curious is that, at the time, I nearly didn't bother organising the whip around as I was so hungover! But I thought to myself, 'try it, and see what happens'...

Have you travelled on Virgin Trains since?

Oh, yeah, loads of times! I had quite an interesting experience about 6 months ago. I was on exactly the same journey - Manchester to London - and my girlfriend, Lulu, who wasn't on the train with me, had picked up my wallet by accident or something... basically, she'd got my ticket.

The inspector came around, and went 'tickets please'. I explained I didn't have it on me, but 'my girlfriend is meeting us at Euston with the ticket.' I'd phoned Lulu by now you see, and said to her: 'Be at Euston by a quarter past twelve otherwise I'm in a world of trouble' - so the idea was she'd meet the train on the platform with the ticket. But the ticket inspector didn't believe me and took my name and went off... he soon came back and said 'don't worry, we'll deal with it at the other end' and he never came back... so I like to think he heard my name and it struck fear, ha ha.

Ha ha. So you could probably walk on a train now, shout your name, and say 'I'm not paying'...

'What's your move'... yeah! I'd love to do that, but I simply don't have the balls.

Any idea what the train guard is up to now?

I'm quite new to Twitter, very new to Twitter in fact, but before I'd even put my toe in the water someone had already said 'this is the guy' on Twitter... and so I had a look at his profile. He's still working on the trains and, interestingly, what I did find out is that, not only is he a train manager... he's a trainer as well now! He is potentially training other jobsworths. It's frightening really; you can't have someone like that in charge!

Do people now come to you in the hope you can help them with their own battles against bureaucracy?

I've never really helped anyone successfully yet. I did try to help someone the other day actually. I walked past a car that had been clamped but appeared to have a valid pass, plus one of the signs that says you should get clamped was without question not entirely visible. They've got to be 100% sure before clamping your car. So I left a note saying 'I think I can help you, call me' on the windscreen. The guy phoned me and said 'I've got your message... but they've taken the car'. I replied: 'What! You should have phoned me before; I think I could have helped.' But then he said: 'Well, they clamped me because I had a parking ticket that was 3 months overdue and that was the bailiffs'... so it turns out I wasn't much help!

Talking of clamping, your Radio 4 series, Tom Wrigglesworth's Open Letters, looked at parking fines (alongside estate agents, bankers and utilities companies). Any shoddy industries in mind should the show get a second series?

I think for definite the insurance industry would be one. I've already half written it, because we were going to use insurance for the first one. In the end we went for estate agents instead, as my mate Dan Atkinson moved house... and the whole second half of that episode was his story. All that estate agents have to do is hold the keys - one job - and they got that wrong.

So, anyway if I got a second series, which I'd love to do, then insurance would be one of the topics. I like to think if I got a second series it would be even better, as we know what to do a bit more now. None of us knew what we were doing on the first series if truth be known. It was very 'organic'.

Our favourite bits were when you wrote to the companies as your sweet gran. Did you actually write these letters, or was that comic licence?

The letters to the estate agents were true, and the utlities companies. The parking one was true too, the letter in which she confessed to overstaying her allotted parking time by a few minutes... all the replies back really were like 'What's your registration number so we can fine you!'

The Bank letter wasn't true... but the guy Clint in the call centre who was working for the 'other team' so to speak - that's a true story. So Clint was my way into that story, but we wanted to keep the format so we brought my granny into it.

It's amazing what is true, but people think you've made it up! Anyway, yes, attention all jobsworths: keep your guard up for anyone called Mabel Bradley sniffing around!

You're currently touring your latest Edinburgh Fringe show, Tom Wrigglesworth's Nightmare Dream Wedding. Could you tell us a little more about it?

It's a bit of a farcical romp. It's based on a true story, about me getting married in Las Vegas. Almost perfectly counter-balancing what happened the previous year when I helped the old woman on the train, this time I nearly killed a woman in a drunken mix up involving an oxygen machine. So I got into some bother with that, and I almost missed my own wedding, so the story is a bit of a 'get me to the church on time' situation.

Er... earlier in our conversation you referred to Lulu as being your 'girlfriend' still Tom?!?

Er... yeah! Well, we are married... but I say 'girlfriend' as I still like her.

I only use the word 'Wife' when I'm being really sarcastic. I can't use it as a term of endearment at all. All the letters are wrong for me - I don't like 'F's very much.

And the other thing is, we married in Las Vegas but we never actually got it legally bound in this country I don't think. I'm sure we're contractually not quite married yet! That just indicates how little we actually care about the 'corporate' side of our relationship. We were engaged for quite a few years before getting married, and getting hitched has changed nothing. We did it for a laugh and the fact we've not really finished it off in the UK is a gesture of how little we care about the paperwork side... but, yes, we are very much a couple.

That's a lovely attitude to have. We can't help but feel you're going to have a form filling in nightmare one day though...

Yeah: next of kin! A complete red tape fiasco!

You've created two really popular shows based on the trouble and scrapes you've found yourself in. Is the pressure on to get yourself in a spot of bother again now?

Well, I've been swigging outside minicab offices! Not really, I'm having a year off Edinburgh... but I do seem to attract chaos.

It's hard because you don't want to end up with things contrived; you don't want to force the issue... it'll only work if you get lost in the moment. If, at the time of germination, you think 'ooh, this will be good', you've sort of ruined it really. There is a danger of me doing that, what with the fact stand-up is my job I suppose... so I'm taking a year off Edinburgh at least. I'm still going to write stuff... and hopefully let chaos come to me, rather than force it!

Well, best of luck attracting more natural chaos into your life then Tom! Ha ha. Thanks for talking to us and all the best with the rest of the tour...

To find out more about Tom and for gig dates see www.tomwrigglesworth.co.uk