Joe's the big squeak
HE'S been described as a "squeaky voiced gonk", a "cartoon waterfowl" and a "demented helium balloon".
He regularly has his audiences in stitches way before the punch line of his stand up routine, simply because he voice is irresistibly funny.
But the question that Joe Pasquale says people most often ask is: does he really talk like that?
The answer, says Joe, is yes. "I've had this (voice) for 44 years so it doesn't seem particularly striking, but everyone else seems to notice it," he says.
"Although it does go up a little when I'm excited."
But the easy going comedian doesn't mind people asking him to talk just so they can hear his voice.
"It's just part of the job," he admits.
"I love what I do - the day I get fed up with it is the day I pack it up."
Luckily for his fans, it doesn't sound like Joe is anywhere near packing it up at the moment.
In fact, his new tour - unsurprisingly titled Does He Really Talk Like That? - opened yesterday in Lincoln and includes three dates in Wales.
So what can people expect from the comedian this time round?
"I always hope people can expect hours of cack!" he says, with his usual bluntly honest view of his craft.
"It's time to leave your problems at home and have a laugh. I always try to vary the support acts, so we've got a mind reader this year."
Joe's career has been as variable as his stand up set, and he's had plenty of experience of straightforward acting, both on stage and screen.
He did his first play, The Nerd, five years ago, and launched his panto career at Swansea Grand Theatre.
Branching out into the big screen, Joe played a gay lieutenant in a comedy movie earlier this year, which he said was "great fun".
Of all the stage work he's done, Joe says Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, in which two minor characters from the play Hamlet stumble around, unaware of their scripted lives and unable to deviate from them, was his favourite. "It was as far away from anything I have done before," he explains.
But the comedian can't decide whether he prefers the freedom of the stand up scene or the discipline of a scripted project. "To be honest I really like the diversity of both. The discipline of acting is different to what I do with stand up. I can get up with stand up and talk about tortoises if I want to."
Possibly the most enjoyable moment of his career though, was his stint on The Muppet Show.
"It was Hollywood, it was John Voight and it was Brooke Shields," he laughs.
"I had never been to Hollywood, let alone worked there. It was just completely different to anything over in England. It was like being in a TV studio but in America with Hollywood stars."
One career moment he didn't enjoy was his experience on reality TV show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here, even though he was crowned King of the Jungle.
"To be honest, it was quite a boring experience. You only saw an hour a day on television but there were another 23 hours when we weren't doing much," he says.
"I'm glad I did it - I learned a lot. The trials were fantastic, it's just the rest of the day and hanging about that was boring.
"They just compress a day into an hour, so for every time something happens there's another three hours where nothing happens."
Despite his lack of enthusiasm, Joe still won the reality TV show. In fact, it seems he succeeds at everything he turns his hand to. But being a comedian isn't a particularly difficult career, he says.
"It depends what you do for a living, it's very subjective. I could say to a brain surgeon 'Is it difficult?' but it's what you know, it's what you do."
So what does the future hold for the funny man with the funnier voice?
Well, it's touring for the next few weeks and then he'll be back in Cardiff on November 21 to do the Royal Variety Show at the Wales Millennium Centre.
He's also writing an autobiography, the working title of which is - you guessed it - Does He Really Talk Like That?
And after that?
"I just take every day as it comes," he says philosophically.
"You don't know what's around the corner in this business. I've been doing it for 23 years and you never get bored, you never get stuck in a rut."
icicWales
