Andy Daly on his Edinburgh Fringe show

From roles in Eastbound and Down to Silicon Valley and The Office, Andy Daly’s flag is flying higher than ever off the back of his three season US Comedy Central masterpiece Review with Forrest MacNeil. A sometimes excruciatingly dark, yet always hilarious, faux-reality show, where Daly’s titular character gave 1-5 star ratings to 'real-life experiences'. Experiences ranging from eating pancakes or hunting, to divorce and, in one rather memorable episode, murder.

Much easier to track down in the UK are his multiple performances on the long-running improvised podcast Comedy Bang Bang. Daly regularly pops up as one of his signature characters, which all have similar hallmarks: "I love this idea of characters that seem very wholesome, and very all-American, who are then revealed to be completely deranged in one way or another – just because it endlessly amuses me," says Daly, "I love initially presenting myself as a delightful person but the more we learn the more horrified we become.”

This year Edinburgh audiences will have a chance to meet some of Daly’s best known characters from his Comedy Bang Bang roster, although he’s not sure it’s going to be pretty. “Well, the show is called Monsters Take Your Questions – you’ll realise over time that all the characters that I play are indeed complete monsters, and it’ll be an opportunity to grill these particular monsters about their point of view on the world. You’re going to meet four people that will change and grow from night to night. As the audience pepper them with questions, the answers will reveal more and more about them. Essentially it’s very dark, depraved and deranged. Oh, and also fun!”

While their monstrous nature is in no doubt, the characters aren’t entirely removed from the real world, such as Don DiMello, a slimy theatrical director known for working with the New York Radio City Music Hall Rockettes. “I do make them up from scratch but, let's take one example of Don DiMello – that came about because I knew somebody who had been a Rockette who told me it was a very regimented, very weird world – the specific size they had to be, their height, this stringent uniformity of kick. It just seemed like a rather oppressive job which got me wondering 'who is in charge of that? What kind of person runs this squad of high kicking dancing girls performing in a children's show?'

"Around the time of Donald Trump’s inauguration, when he was getting rejected by everyone, the Rockettes agreed to perform there. Even though a lot of the dancers were coming out publicly saying that they didn’t want to, but were forced to as it was in their contract. So the NY Times ran a profile of the guy who runs the Rockettes and sure enough, he is a disgusting dirtbag. It turns out that I was more or less right!”

An experienced performer, Daly has been 'living' with many of these characters for years. “Each one has a pretty extensive backstory and I take that very seriously – if someone points out a contradiction in the biography it really does bum me out. But, it’s hard to keep track due to the improvisational nature of it all. They also may have slightly mellowed with my age, just to the extent that it's a little more likely for me to say 'oh, that goes a little far' these days. These shows are unscripted so anything could happen. I’ll be feeling it out from night to night to see how far it feels good to go.

“I am so looking forward to it. Several years ago Omid Djalili was really putting the screws on me to come to Edinburgh, but then my television show got in the way. That was back in 2012 and I've been chomping at the bit to get over ever since.”

Time will tell if Edinburgh audiences will give Andy Daly his own 5 stars.

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Andy Daly: Monsters Take Your Questions, Gilded Balloon Teviot (Wine Bar), 3-13 Aug, 8.30pm, £7-£13.50