You've called your new show Small World. Can you explain why?
I've always been interested in talking about what seems to be nothing but kind of is something. I had the idea when I bought a radiator and got subscribed to Radiator News by the people I bought it from. I was being sent their newsletter every month,
but how do you extract yourself from that, with this imagined workforce being upset that I've decided it's not for me. For me what's funny about that is I'm already talking about something mundane – radiators – and then I make it even more mundane.
One of your many skills is tapping into things that we all relate too but have never noticed.
I enjoy being able to draw out comedy from something that has been underneath our noses all the time. It's so exciting when you have a thought and you turn it into a line and the audience completely connects to that. I see things through my lens of radical unreasonableness and I think as comedians, we are meant to draw the audience into our world.
Zoom is another annoyance...
That comes from working from home and wondering where technology is going to take us. I'm not sure if we are good at tracking the things that we lose as we progress. I think the way we should all gauge progress is not how convenient a new piece of technology is, but how it ruins our life when it stops working. You try to check in online for a flight, but if that's not working, you're stuffed.
How different is this small world that you discuss onstage different to life at home?
I'm used to meeting people who invariably say 'you're not as miserable as we thought you would be'. I'm miserable onstage because I've always found being miserable is funny.
You appeared on Taskmaster last year. How did that happen?
I'd been asked to be on it since it started and for a long time I'd resisted. And then the creator Alex Horne asked me personally and I thought, I can't just keep saying no. Someone described it to me as being like a really cool version of Britain's Got Talent,
where everyone has to watch it. I watched a couple of episodes and I thought this is clearly a brilliant show and I can see myself fitting into it.
Were you very competitive?
If you just play it for laughs, then you're dissing the whole format. The whole point is you've got to take it seriously otherwise, you're really not playing the game. So once
you're doing that you want to do well in it. I was a bit of a dunderhead, but it wouldn't be much fun to watch if we were all good at everything.
You did your first gig at the Comedy Store in 1986. How would you say the stand-up landscape has changed?
I do miss the diversity in terms of the style of acts. Back then you could be on a bill with someone who was going to lower themselves into a washing-up tub or put a firework up their backside and that was their act.
Did you ever imagine comedy could get this big?
Absolutely not. I distinctly remember that when I started my only ambition was to get my name on the blackboard outside the Comedy Store alongside people like Paul Merton and Jeremy Hardy. All my life, I loved stand-up. I loved the idea of someone with a microphone standing there and holding an audience. It had a sheen of sophistication that I liked. Then getting my own C4 series it just seemed to explode and I was there at the right moment.
You made comedy seem grown up, wearing a smart suit rather than jeans...
I just wanted to get onstage and say funny stuff. The suit was a nod to many of my comic heroes. People like Morecambe and Wise and Dave Allen. As a kid, what I loved about the fact they wore suits, is that I realised seeing them that grown-ups can
be silly, whereas the grown-ups I knew were all serious. The suit is an emblem of authority so it makes it easier to turn an authority figure on its head. If you dress as that person then make an idiot of yourself it's more powerful.
You have a podcast, Oh My Dog...
Seann suggested that as we both have dogs we should chat to guests with dogs. It's fun because when you're doing your own show, you don't really get to talk to other comedians. So it's a moment where you put aside an hour or two a week and talk.
And the great thing is you don't have to worry about commissioning editors or anything of that sort. Obviously, you hope it goes well and people enjoy it. But that's not the most important part of it.
You revealed on it that, well, let's just say you could call yourself Jack Wee...
It never occurred to me that other people don't do this. When I take my chihuahua Dolly out for a pee at night I...have a pee as well. Originally it was a way of encouraging Dolly, you know, the sound of running water. And it's the back garden, not the front garden. Nothing kinky going on...
You host Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. The previous host, Humphrey Lyttelton, fronted it until he was 86. Can you see yourself doing it that long?
I treasure that show, I think it's something that fits me really well. I was a guest and I observed Humphrey very close-hand. That sort of weary despair that he had was brilliant. I think I've got that now. His trick really was that he didn't want to be there. And that's something that comes quite naturally to me anyway!
How has your own comedy changed?
I suppose I'm just less cynical or sceptical about people than I used to be. When you're 20, you look at the world and everyone annoys you because they are all a bit like your parents. But as you get older more people in the world remind you of your children, if you have children, and so your attitude changes. I think I'm probably sillier and more attracted to comedy where I'm the target now.
You are 63, do you see yourself as an elder statesman of stand-up?
I'm certainly not a statesman, but I do feel old when I go to clubs. About seven years ago when I was trying out material there would be lots of young comedians that I'd never heard of. Now there's lots of young comedians that have never heard of me!