Harry Hill is on the road for the first time since 2005. It’s been a year since TV Burp aired for the final time and he joins a list of comics who have decided to return to their roots.

“It’s like the 1990s again with Alan Davies, Stewart Lee, me. Maybe we’re all having some sort of mid-life crisis.

“I used to tour virtually every year and I didn’t consciously stop – I was so greedy with TV that there was never any time to do it.

“So it took me stopping TV and thinking I don’t want to go do a TV show straight away so why don’t I try to cash in on the comedy boom?”

He went to Edinburgh last summer to get match-fit.

“I did two shows a day – eight in total – and nearly killed myself. I’d forgotten how physical it is.

“It’s not like work,” he adds. “It’s an intensive two hours throwing yourself around, trying to remember all this stuff – and I never have a set list.

“I was talking to Tim Vine and he locks himself in a room for two weeks to learn all those puns, which is probably what I should do but I can’t be bothered.”

Still, he’s managed to put together a new show, Sausage Time, which is a two-part bill with old Hill favourites The Caterers and The Harry’s providing a soundtrack as his backing bands.

“They don’t get on so it’s awkward,” he jokes, dry as a bone.

The comic admits he is a restless soul. TV Burp might have lasted for ten years but he always kept himself busy with other pursuits.

He has appeared on the The Royal Variety Performance and transformed into Morrissey on Celebrity Stars In Their Eyes. Harry Hill’s Whopping Joke Book made him the best-selling children’s author of 2008, in part thanks to the legions of young fans who watched TV Burp.

Among his less successful work was his debut record, Funny Times, released in 2010.

The Guide still covets a copy of its single, Ken! (featuring William Roache).

“It did nothing. No one bought it. But did you see the video? It was great.

“It had me and Bill as cowboys. It was filmed in Salford. It was good fun but he really didn’t seem to have any idea what he was doing there.”

And what about you, Harry. Did you have any idea what you were doing there?

“No. I just wanted to meet him.”

There’ll be music in Sausage Time – an eclectic mix, apparently, including Beyoncé, Carly Rae Jepsen – even Jerusalem.

“There is something for everyone but not all the time. You’ll enjoy some of it but I’ll be very surprised if you enjoy all of it. The only person who enjoys all of it is me.”

The much talked-about 20ft sausage comes in the second half – before which Hill promises to have revealed incontrovertible proof that God exists.

“God plays a small part – well we don’t know what part he plays, he might play a big part. As far as we refer to him. He is ever present.”

Hill has come a long way since winning the Perrier Best Newcomer Award at the 1992 Edinburgh Fringe. He is working on a stage musical version of The X Factor for Simon Cowell which will open this time next year in the West End.

“It’s true. Me and Steve Brown are doing it. What can I tell you? It was a phone call I made and to my surprise he was keen. So it’s a very exciting venture.”

It’s already written and, like TV Burp, is a cheeky celebration.

“We did a performance last week and Simon Cowell came along to that. He didn’t hang around for long but, yeah, I think it’s going to turn the whole musical world on its head. It will never be the same again.”

Hill won’t be in it. “I’ve just written the story and the jokes. Play to your strengths, I say.”

His strength has always been taking the piss. TV Burp regularly topped eight million viewers and had four DVD spin-offs. It’s why he never had the nerve to quit.

“The last three or four years I said to the writers let’s make this the last one but I never had the nerve really. They only started paying in the last few years if I’m honest.

“It was always fun but I was anxious if we kept doing it, it would get a bit rubbish and I felt we had done enough of it. I felt I’d pretty much done all the jokes I could do about TV.”

So instead of the idiocy of TV, he will be offering his opinions on global warming, terrorism, the elderly, plus there will be a pillow fight in a paddling pool.

”I have my son from my first marriage, Gary, he comes on. I am handing the business over to him at the end of the tour. And he brings his son from his first marriage on, my grandson, Sam, so it is all to play for.”

  • Theatre Royal Brighton, New Road, Tuesday, March 12, and Wednesday, March 13. Starts 7.30pm, £31. Call 0844 8717627