Listening to Sean Kelly auctioning one of his famous boxes on the hit show Storage Hunters UK can be tiring.

There is no point trying to keep abreast of his sales patter as the pounds rack up, because quite simply you won’t be able to.

Sean is the larger than life, fun-filled character who sells large containers, or ‘boxes’, filled with goods that have long ago been abandoned by their owners. Those bidding have seconds to weigh up the contents before the box is closed and the auction begins.

The show, and its follow-up Celebrity Storage Hunters, captured viewers’ imaginations, first in the USA and then the UK, with its unpredictability and rivalry between bargain hunters.

Next month Sean is embarking upon a UK tour followed by an Edinburgh Festival Fringe run with his new show Sold Your Way. It comes to Bradford in June.

He opens up about his life in this raw and funny show, with hilarious tales from his past escapades, where he has done everything from holding a top secret military clearance and serving a combat tour in Iraq, to catching shoplifters as an undercover store detective in Italy and headlining the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Half of his childhood was spent in Reno, Nevada and the other half in Hanau, Germany. “As a kid, I went to several bull auctions at the annual rodeos,” he says, and quickly learned how to sell.

He began to pursue his hobbies of stand-up comedy and auctioneering more than 15 years ago, and came up with the idea upon which Storage Hunters is based.

“At one of my storage auctions, two customers got in a fist fight and I thought to myself, “this would make a great TV show - its Antique Road Show meets WWF wrestling.”

His wife of 25 years Lori helped him to master his auctioneering technique. “She always had to listen to me practice and would say that it’s taken a million years to perfect - she he claims that she hears me doing it in her sleep.

“I learned the basics at auctioneering school, but the rest was self-taught, which worked out better than the time I tried to teach myself to skydive,” he jokes.

The couple have been storage hunters themselves. “One time we bought 17 units at one auction,” he says. “In that haul we found a massive collection of vintage Hot Wheels cars in the original packaging and in pristine condition as well as hundreds of brand new handbags.”

It does not take people long to assess what is in a container. “The real pros know in their heads what they can resell items for at a car boot sale or online. Its 20 per cent experience and 80 per cent good old-fashioned gambling.”

Things can get heated when people are competing over boxes. “That’s why I have a security guard,” says Sean. At some of my auctions, it’s like watching Punch and Judy bidding.”

There are many reasons why boxes lie unclaimed for so long, including divorce, people going to prison, and death.

He has seen “just about everything” come out of boxes “from a stuffed cow to an S&M torture chamber to a meth lab. If it’s weird, it’s probably in storage.”

Rare art, helicopters, aircraft, coin collections, antiques and weapons are among the more expensive items to be unearthed.

A stand-up comedian for 19 years, the first hour of the show will be humorous tales about his life. The second will be an inter-active auction with the audience, who are encouraged to bring a cheeky item from home. “I then invite some of them on stage and we auction the items off, with the proceeds going to benefit Help for Heroes. After every show, I go to the lobby and meet all the fans.”

*Sold Your Way! will be at The Studio, Bradford Alhambra on 13th June 13. For tickets go to: www.bradford-theatres.co.uk T: 01274 432000