So when you’re talking about your shows at the start, you’re getting a little audit as to your audience, and who’s in?

That’s not why I do it. I do it really because I say that this show sort of follows on in context. But I find it useful and interesting, and it does give me a gauge.

I’m just looking through your current tour schedule here, and it looks like 90% of it has been meticulously planned, and the other 10% has been done with a dart.

Well, I tell you what it is. We booked this tour a bit late for one thing. We ummed and ahhhed about it, because we were trying to decide if you book a tour late, you’re in a much less strong position to go yeah, we’ll do three nights in Manchester there, then three in Liverpool, and then three in Salford. And you have to get what you can get. So you go we can’t get three in Manchester, we can get one, and the only one we can get the next night is Aberdeen, so we’ve got to go there. That’s the problem with booking it late.

The reason we booked it late was for six months, we ummmed and ahhed about whether to do an arena tour. And because obviously an arena tour is far more lucrative than doing 115 dates around the country. I think my tour finished on November 28th, which is seven and a half months of touring. If I’d done an arena tour, I’d be finishing next Thursday! It would have been about 15 nights in just over two weeks. Then, obviously, in those seven months that I wasn’t touring I could write another show, and then go out again. So this is an enormous workload, and I’m taking time out to tour. But we made the decision, purely 100% based on satisfaction for everyone, the audience and me. Ultimately, it came down to what is important really is the experience. And we took the decision that it’s more satisfying in theatres, for punters and for me. I’m not complaining!