ROBERT Florence pulls out his wallet and proudly flourishes the business card of an executive from Russian state television.

It is one of his more unusual memories of last year's referendum, and a reminder of the success of television cult comedy Burnistoun.

In the lead up to the vote last September, a camera crew came to Scotland and interviewed Florence and his comedy partner Iain Connell - in a lift. If you have watched the voice recognition sketch from the first series of the BBC Scotland sketch show, first screened in 2010 and watched several million times over on YouTube, you'll get the joke.

Their increasing frustration at a voice-activated lift failing to understand a Scottish accent has been debated by neuro-linguistic programmers at Microsoft and in US universities. No wonder Russian television thought it was the perfect vehicle to focus on Scottish politics.

"I kept the guy's card because I thought it was so cool," says Florence. "Apparently in Russia they had seen the lift sketch. It was, 'My God, this is a sketch we just did for Scotland, not even for the whole of the UK, and then we're on Russian state TV talking about it'."

Adds Connell: "A couple of Russian lassies made their own version of it. I think they just did it word for word. It was surprising how many people had used some version of voice recognition technology. I thought it would be a few people but when it came on everybody came up and said, 'I've used it for this and I've used it for that and it's a nightmare'. That sketch was a lucky surprise."

The moral of this story is that you can't predict anything when you're writing a sketch show. The pair from Glasgow, who have been friends since their teens and went on to write for the BBC Comedy Unit's Chewin' The Fat and Karen Dunbar Show before bringing Burnistoun to our screens for three series, are mulling over ideas for their 1700-seater sell-out stage show at the King's Theatre on March 25 during Glasgow International Comedy Festival.

"If sketches were to be screened in a cinema with an audience you would just have no idea what ones are going to be popular. In terms of the ones you think have worked, you have no idea whether people are going to go for them," says Florence.

Tickets went on sale for the stage show at the end of last year and were snapped up in less than an hour. Not bad going when you consider the BBC TV sketch show ended in 2012.

We're sitting in Lucky 7 Canteen, a bar in Glasgow's Bath Street, on a busy Friday afternoon and the guys are drinking tea from dainty vintage china cups as we talk about the upcoming show. At this stage, rehearsals have yet to begin and the comedy duo are still penning scenes for the stage production.

"We want to get some new stuff in there. We'll be writing for a good while probably, changing things," says Florence. "It's always a long process getting these things ready. And we were quite surprised at how quickly it sold out. There could easily have been 20 tickets sold in that first hour instead of all of them. We'd been having conversations about wee things we could do in January to try and drum up more sales. We genuinely didn't anticipate it to sell out."

So popular has the prospect of the return of Burnistoun been for fans that more live dates are now planned for later in the year. That will be a relief for those who wonder why it has taken the pair so long to put together a stage show. If the ticket sales for Greg Hemphill and Ford Kiernan's Still Game's 21-night sell-out run at the SSE Hydro is anything to go by, there is an insatiable appetite for live comedy in Scotland.

It has just been announced that Burnistoun's Big Night Out is to start filming for the BBC this spring, a television special set over one Saturday night and a rather unique snapshot of a town letting its hair down.

"We had been talking about the stage show since it was on TV. We probably should have done it then but it just takes a long time to get round to doing things," says Connell. "You have different ideas and it was always there as an option. Then you blink and think, 'That was a couple of years away.'

"The Comedy Unit suggested doing the festival, that was what started it off. We were talking about maybe writing a new thing to do on the stage and they said, 'You could do Burnistoun at the Comedy Festival'. So, it wasn't even really us who came up with the idea."

What really made the decision for them was the offer of the King's Theatre, according to Florence. "When the Comedy Festival said we could use the King's and they could sort that out, that's when we really went, 'That would be magic.' It's one of those things, it will just be brilliant doing it there. I've seen so much good stuff at the King's, I'm excited about that. I'm also excited about just seeing in the back of the King's. Just because of the history... is there not meant to be a ghost as well?"

Deadpans Connell with impeccable timing: "Aye, there will be after we finish."

The on-stage cast of five, including Burnistoun regulars Kirsty Strain and Louise Stewart, will bring us the Quality Polis, McGregor and Toshan, as well as other favourites from the fictional Scottish town of Burnistoun. Deciding which characters to bring to the stage has involved trawling Facebook and YouTube to find the biggest hits. Social media has proved to be an innovative way for the pair to try out new sketches as well as keep an eye on what material fans are sharing.

"When we started doing Burnistoun, Facebook and Twitter weren't the way they are now, so you weren't able to get that feedback," says Florence. "It was just people talking to you. I remember a guy saying to me, 'I love your show, mate, but get rid of they ice cream van guys, they dae ma box in.'"

Audience interaction will be high on the agenda, from McGregor and Toshan possibly making a few arrests in the audience to some people getting out of their seats to come on stage.

"I quite like when you go and see a comedy show live and there's that kind of interaction. I think the thing Ford and Greg did well with Still Game at the Hydro was it looked like you were going to be watching Still Game on stage but then they broke out of that and there was a lot of audience stuff and characters in the audience. They did that really well," comments Florence.

Behind the scenes, Florence and Connell have been building up their company Bold Yin Productions, and Florence will be making his second film in Glasgow, following low-budget horror The House Of Him, which came out last year.

"We're making another film this summer, which I'm writing and directing and he's in," Florence nods to Connell.

"Well, you've offered me the part but I've not accepted it. He needs to negotiate with my agent," quips Connell.

"So I'm in talks with Iain Connell. It's a horror comedy about a normal guy fae Glesga, which would be his role, who is turned into a vampire. It's not a nice vampire story, you know how vampires are all quite nice nowadays? It's not like that. It's going to be a very bloody, very gory, horror comedy," smiles Florence.

"You did say I've to be seduced as well," adds Connell.

"That's true, that's true. I'm in talks with myself for that part," says Florence.

Darren Connell from Scot Squad is expected to be in the new film project, along with a handful of other new names. Nurturing up-and-coming talent is important to Florence and Connell, though they say they're just "looking for funnier people than us".

They say at any point they always have a sitcom in development, though their focus will turn back to Burnistoun for more stage dates after the film. There is talk of an all-new stage production for next year, though they admit they are keen to be back on television.

"It would be nice to be back on TV doing our stuff so I think hopefully a wee bit of that will work out as well," says Florence. "I think there's definitely mileage in Burnistoun as has been proved by people wanting to see it live. It's also the way we're thinking about it now: Burnistoun is essentially a comedy about a city and you can do a number of things with that idea, it doesn't have to be exactly the same as Burnistoun.

"We could have a sitcom set there, we could do a live stage thing set there with different characters. We're being quite open-minded about it.

"There will definitely be more Burnistoun stuff because we like it. There are certain characters like Peter and Scott we have often thought it would be good to write a play with, just the two guys, a couple of couches on the stage and them for an hour and a half. There's more stuff you want to do and can't in a sketch show. There will be more stuff coming down the line, definitely."

Burnistoun: Live And For Real!, is at the King's Theatre, Glasgow on March 25, as part of the Glasgow International Comedy Festival. Visit www.glasgowcomedy festival.com for full programme details