Paul Sinha on the Personal and Political

It's said that the simpler explanation is usually the correct one. While William Shakespeare famously wrote of seven ages of man, comedian Paul Sinha has it down to two. Or as he describes these two phases of life: "On the way up and on the way out."

Before Sinha became a stand-up – and a "daytime TV micro-celebrity" courtesy of ITV's The Chase – he was a GP. Yet medicine gave him more insight into comedy than the ageing process: "As a doctor, you see such a variety of human existence that you don't really have time to sit there and make greater observations. The thing that being a doctor gave me more than anything else is a sense of perspective. I don't take the lows of comedy as seriously as some other people might. I think to myself: I've seen proper life-lows. I think doing a profession as serious as medicine gives you insight as a comedian that a bad gig is a bad gig – move on."

His latest show follows his most recent hours in being more personal in nature. "I have had health issues in the last 12 months," he says, "and that gave me an impetus to write the show. But I promise it will have an upbeat and feel good ending. I don't want people to walk out of an hour show feeling miserable."

When Sinha first broke out as a stand-up he was often bracketed as a socio-political comedian. Despite the twists UK and global politics have taken in recent years, he's resisting the temptation to add another layer of commentary about this in his shows. "The expansion of people's need to be relevant – and I'm as guilty of this as anyone, especially with social media -  is diverting people's need to engage with real life. I feel I have very little to say that would change people's minds or attitudes. Social media has entrenched all debate. And the idea someone would change their mind because of something someone said is now absolute nonsense."

A fertile take on a news story is harder to unearth when millions are doing the same in real-time, and it's taken Sinha in another direction. "It has been a conscious decision to go more personal," he says. In addition, the success and mainstream acceptance of gay equality has happily eroded his want or need to say as much: "It takes away some of the righteous anger for a gay comedian. We won! I have less to say about gay politics." Keeping a show closer to the heart is helping Sinha keep his comedy distinctive: "The difference between the personal and political, by definition, is that the personal is original."

When he tours shows, he is conscious of the different groups of people that come to see him, and how it perhaps tempers his instincts. Or, maybe, it'd be better put that it makes him more conscientious: "I think it's become unfashionable to stand in front of a room of people who have paid to see you and just tell them what your views are." And, he has a lot of people to reach without wishing to lecture at them: "Offhand I can think of Radio 4 people, people who want to listen to a vaguely snowflake-y liberal perspective; people who only know me as the guy on The Chase; people who know me through my Edinburgh work; people who know me through Radio 5 Live sport panel shows. Even in The Chase there's a demographic – students and the elderly. It has softened my edges, there is no doubt about that."

But that brings him back to Edinburgh. "I'm back now to coming to Edinburgh for the sheer love of it," he says. "One of things about Edinburgh is that you don't have to soften your edges. You do the show that you want to do."