Simon Munnery must be the first comic to create a show indebted to the work of a Danish existential philosopher.

It’s not the first time he has taken inspiration from philosophy though.

“The League Against Tedium was a fairly philosophical character, somewhere between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard,” he says of his comic creation which eventually had its own extremely cult 2001 BBC Two series Attention Scum.

The League arose out of a long train journey Munnery had with his former double act partner Stephen Cheeke – a journey which also gave birth to his other early character Alan Parker: Urban Warrior.

“In my notebook I just had ‘Attention scum – you are nothing’,” remembers Munnery. “He was called Mr Loser – someone who was angry with the world. You were meant to laugh at him as he tried to build himself up as superior to everyone else.”

Munnery’s introduction to philosophy was through Nietzsche – “I liked the way he wrote” – but it was a 30th birthday present from Kierkegaard’s Practice In Christianity which turned him onto the Danish philosopher.

Kierkegaard ended up being mocked in his own time, but is now regarded as a substantial influence on Western society.

“I’m a bit of a fan,” says Munnery. “The opening line from one of his diaries I found hilarious: ‘I have just now come from a party where I was its life and soul; witticisms streamed from my lips, everyone laughed and admired me, but I went away – yes, the dash should be as long as the radius of the earth’s orbit – and wanted to shoot myself.’ “Kierkegaard writes to inspire you to think for yourself. He can be a bit polemical, which I think is a good thing – to criticise your own time.”

The title came as a response to Arthur Smith’s award-winning Sings Leonard Cohen show. There are no songs in Munnery’s performance, aside from one of David Cameron’s favourites.

“I sing The Jam’s Eton Rifles which leads into an angry attack on the Government,” says Munnery.

“I went to Trinity College in Cambridge and the boys from Eton would always dance to it. When Paul Weller heard about Cameron he asked ‘Which part of the lyrics doesn’t he get?’ Cameron got all of them – the Eton Rifles won!

“It’s a bit like William Blake’s Jerusalem, this satirical poem about 19th century England almost becoming the B-side to the National Anthem – the piece of criticism becomes part of the Establishment.”

Munnery’s survey of Kierkegaard’s work also sees him employ an arsenal of four voices to tackle the author’s competing discourses.

“I have one voice which is sort of somewhere between Johnny Rotten and Kenneth Williams,” says Munnery. “And there is a scathing voice which is a mix of Australian and Michael Caine. They are the four voices I can do.

“Basically the structure of the show is Kierkegaard says something, I try to explain it, and see what comes from it.”

Kierkegaard’s last few years were unfortunately plagued by comedy, when he became the butt of the joke after picking a fight with a satirical magazine.

“In a Jesus-like way he invited it to mock him,” says Munnery. “So they did. But they didn’t mock him for his ideas or what he wrote – they mocked his appearance and his thin legs. Children would point at him in the streets. No-one christened their child Søren for generations after his death.

“He underestimated how awful it would be. One of his pleasures was to walk around and meet people, to study life. He was prevented from doing that. The fact that Jesus was also mocked fitted in with his religious sensibilities.”

Munnery admits he had no idea at first whether the idea of combining Kierkegaard and comedy would work – and despite performing the show at the Edinburgh Fringe last year he is still tinkering.

“I started performing the show I had written and bits of other stuff crept in,” he says. “I was going on tangents relating to what he said from my actual life.

“In Edinburgh it solidified into an hour, but I never really finished it. I’m looking forward to touring it and doing a bit longer.

“My shows generally either expand to a certain point, or I get fed up with them expanding and saying ‘It’s finished’. It’s about halfway through that process now.”

Simon Munnery Sings Søren Kierkegaard
The Old Market, Upper Market Street, Hove, Wednesday, February 11

Starts 8pm, tickets £12. Call 01273 201801.