KNOWN for her leading role presenting The Great British Bake-off, Sue Perkins’s career began in comedy.

Starting out with long-term creative partner Mel Giedroyc to deliver Mel And Sue for television, they went on to write for French & Saunders and presented Light Lunch in the late 1990s. From there the work has kept on coming and Bake-Off began in 2010.

Perkins says there is less and less of a distinction between her on-stage and on-screen self and her personal self as she has grown older.

She says, “Increasingly, what you see is what you get – namely a misbehaving toddler trapped in the body of a 46-year-old woman.”

It is clearly behaviour that, along with her co-presenters Mary Berry, Paul Hollywood and Giedroyc, has gone down well with Bake-Off fans.

Perkins says, “I think the chemistry between the four of us works so well. We’re all big kids at heart. We’re all very playful. We don’t approach it as a job. We approach it as a day out at a country fair.

“But the real reason why the show is so successful is the 12 people who come to bake every year.

“Although we receive a lot of attention, I really do believe that the bakers are where the magic is.”

Perkins says her tour, Live! In Spectacles, is a chance to look back on her life so far.

“I fully intend to live to the age of 92,” she says, “so this is half-time. Essentially this tour is handing out the orange segments.”

The tour comes as Perkins puts out a book, called Spectacles, which each punter gets in their ticket price.

She says, “Writing a memoir begins a process that doesn’t necessarily end with publication. You begin to think about family life and stories and relationships, and those are ongoing. Once the book was published, I thought, ‘There is so much more still to say without necessarily writing another book. Why not animate the book with a live tour?’ It’s like a companion volume ... a big, technicolour puke of thoughts.”

Some parts of the book are very personal and it is interesting to wonder if Perkins had reservations about giving too much away or letting her private experiences out into the world.

She says, “My main concern when writing the book was that I wasn’t mean about anyone. Nothing good can come from meanness. I was happy to be honest about my life, and to express myself emotionally, because without that an autobiography is little more than a work CV with adverbs.”

But she aims to keep the tour upbeat: “The tour is fun all the way, although if I am asked serious questions in the Q & A I will answer them seriously, of course.

“I may be wrong but I don’t think people will be coming to see me because they want a diatribe on infertility, lost love or pet death. They’ll be coming for a laugh, so that’s what they shall have.”

She adds: “I really enjoy playing with an audience. At book events I do Q&As, and it’s often then that the madness starts. It often feels like an anarchic version of Question Time.”

She says she feels enriched when interacting with an audience.

“Performing live challenges you to be more engaged,” she says, “and the great thing is, each venue is completely different. What I have done lately has been TV-based, so I haven’t had the same feedback as I get live, and that’s what I love.

“I adore the raw surprise of someone asking a question you would never have expected. I love the spontaneity of it. I don’t encourage hecklers, but sometimes a heckler is the funniest person in the room – why not embrace that?”

Perkins will be signing her book after the show.

She says, “A gig is a two-way street. It’s not about me broadcasting. It’s not, ‘This is what I’ve got to say about this.’ It’s as much about how people respond to the material. My memoir is a story of family and childhood, and everyone has had one of those. Mine is not the definitive version of childhood, but it’s a great way to start a conversation.”

The show contains slides. Perkins says, “There is only one picture of me in the book and I have this horrific haircut in it. People say, ‘Surely that was just one bad haircut day.’ But I’m afraid I have 150 slides of myself at different ages, all with the same haircut. My mum had someone round to cut my hair who, it transpired, had only done dog grooming before. So I had a low Dougal-style fringe that was perfectly straight. It swayed like a trimmed, bearded collie. A bowl for all seasons.”

Perkins believes a sense of humour is vital: “Life is boring without punchlines. Without humour, what’s the point?”

>>> Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Church Street, September 10, doors 6.45pm, starts 7.30pm, tickets £25.50 plus booking, call 01273 709709