Comedy in Scotland is a funny business. Glasgow may be renowned for its sense of humour but until recently the city has been a stranger to "organised comedy". Even the excellent Stu Who’s Funny Farm was no more than an example of that great Scottish institution - talented guys putting together something genuinely worthwhile, but never achieving the success they deserved.

Then the Shepherd family, Tommy - an entrepreneur previously based in London - and his wife Jane, hit Edinburgh in the mid-1990s with a full-time, professionally run comedy club, The Stand, giving him a virtual monopoly. The Stand clubs in Edinburgh, and later in Glasgow, were re-inforced by a notorious booking policy described variously as no other gigs in the same city "within one week either side of a gig at The Stand without prior agreement" (Shepherd) to "two weeks either side" (Bill Dewar - who was then working with Shepherd) and by one Scottish comedian, Janey Godley, as "immoral".

But that’s all in the past. Shepherd, Edinburgh’s Don Corleone of comedy, has competition in the capital, and from within "the family". Bill Dewar, described by Shepherd as "a fella who used to work for us" and who describes himself as "Tommy’s de facto son-in-law" - he’s been living with Shepherd’s daughter for years - was in with the bricks of The Stand when Shepherd put up the money. Now Dewar’s out, but not down.

He has split from the "dogmeat cake" of The Stand, taken his popular World of Comedy quiz to the Gilded Balloon and found backing for Boom Boom, his own comedy club. Dewar fired a warning shot in what has been referred to as the "comedy wars" last Friday with some serious comedy muscle from Phil Kay, Craig Hills and Miles Jupp, star of Shepherd’s own Stand Up Scotland showcase.

Dewar still holds down "a shit office job" to pay the bills and is negotiating a permanent home for Boom Boom. He wants to offer something "better than The Stand" with better deals for the comics and better value for the punters - such as a guaranteed seat for their money .

Which is a boast of Godley, frontwoman at Canvas, the new Glasgow comedy venue seeking to rustle Shepherd’s west coast flock away from him. Canvas is a new approach to comedy for Scotland - less "pie and a pint" and more "meze and mixology" . Shepherd’s opposition has re-invented the city’s old cheese market as Arta, a designer’s dream of music and comedy in the achingly hip basement area.

Shepherd appears sanguine. He says he wishes the new ventures well. And he believes the Glasgow club is really just a relocation of Godley’s previous club, Jesters, and that Dewar’s Edinburgh venture will be "a one-off". Shepherd insists he encourages new clubs.

This is not exactly how Dewar puts it. While echoing the "more good clubs should be encouraged" sentiment, he describes Shepherd as being like Attila the Hun in his "it’s not enough that I succeed, others must fail" attitude. Godley, who says she refused to work for The Stand on "moral" grounds , admires Shepherd for being "big enough" to rescind it. She isn’t worried . Her club is in a "different class".

Something all three agree on is that they have been misrepresented in the press,. They also agree that Glasgow and Edinburgh have room for many comedy clubs. Of course, some will be more successful than others.