John-Luke Roberts plays Brighton Komedia on February 10

Weirdly, I don’t think there have been any surprises for me so far in 2019. Everything has gone exactly as I expected.

Every day so far has had a mundane inevitability to it, and not a single thing has happened that I didn’t already think would happen.

Which is actually pretty surprising, when you think about it.

Your comedy has been described as “absurdist”, and using the tools of clowning – which it is reported you learnt from renowned French clown Philippe Gaulier. How do you learn to tap in to somebody else’s funny bone?

A large part of it is listening... try something out, and listen for the laugh. If people laugh, do it more.

If they don’t laugh, do it differently, or don’t do it again.

It’s sort of that simple.

And in this current political climate, do you have to stretch more to find the absurd? Or should the absurd be kept separate from current affairs?

I don’t really believe you can make any sort of art which isn’t political whether that’s painting or ballet or comedy or novels or whatever.

And absurdism is very much a reaction to the world around us. You perform stupid things which don’t make sense, because the world is stupid and doesn’t make sense.

I think we (people) are terrified of things not making sense, so we come up with all these belief systems and ideologies to fool ourselves into thinking they do make sense.

It’s the role of the absurdist to say actually, things don’t make sense, and it would be better for all of us if we could learn to live with that.

But I really should stress the show is basically an hour of very silly jokes.

All I want to do is perform some comedy.

And have a show with a lot of sound cues and props or a titular red herring?

A lot of sound cues, but no props.

I’ve worked very hard over the years to cut down on props because it means I end up hauling too many things around when I’m performing the show.

So the props have been streamlined, but there still are props.

Too many props, to be honest.

I lied when I said there weren’t any props, there’s a bunch.

Please tell me that the blue moustache from the poster is still on your face.

It is still on my face, but it’s not blue at the moment.

It will be blue in the show, because I paint it.

I was planning on dyeing it, but the salon I went to refused because they didn’t want to put bleach on my face.

Go on, I said.

But they stood their ground and hats off to them.

I’ll always appreciate people who don’t put bleach on my face.

Your last show, Stdad-Up, touched on some personal relationships – what emotional gamut might your audience expect to run with this show?

Stdad-Up was a show about my father dying, in which I performed a grotesque version of my dad doing an hour of insult comedy.

It was a way of using comedy to look at how we mourn people, and specifically people we’re meant to like, but don’t.

But that was really a theatre show dressed up as comedy, this show is aiming, first and foremost, to be very stupid and funny.

And at the same time, I also make an argument for why being stupid and funny is important.

So the emotional gamut for the audience is, ideally, solid laughter with a two-minute break for an emotional/moving bit.

I caught a few of your Spice Girls alternatives at the ACMS in Brighton last year, when you were putting together ideas for this show. Most of the Spice ladies have had a bash at acting – as a playwright what might your response be if you were offered the chance to script a The Spice Girls – The Revenge live theatre piece for oodles of cash?

I’d say yes, obviously.

But what are they taking revenge over?

If I wrote that movie I’d want the Spice Girls to really hit the big time. I wouldn’t want them expressing personal gripes against “frenemies”, but probably taking on some great evil. And not filmic but familiar monsters like vampires or werewolves, I’d want to see the Spice Girls take on a truly great, incomprehensible terror, like Cthulhu or Rupert Murdoch.

It feels like you have been actively a part of the comedy community, with work including your role as co-host of The Alternative Comedy Memorial Society (ACMS) and as a writer on the likes of The News Quiz and Never Mind The Buzzcocks. Was this a deliberate decision to be more community-led in a career that is traditionally known as being quite solo driven – or did it just work out that way?

That’s an interesting question.

I don’t think it’s particularly unique to me. Performing as a solo act can obviously be quite lonely, so I think comedians tend to seek out communities to make up for that.

The ACMS was set up for like-minded oddballs to try stuff and when you’re maybe a bit off the beaten track material wise, it’s a good feeling to be in a room with people who have senses of humour not too different to your own.

I basically set ACMS up (with Thom Tuck) so I’d have somewhere I could perform the comedy I wanted to perform.

Fans of BBC Radio Comedy want to know if there will be any more Welcome To Our Village, Please Invade Carefully on the horizon?

I don’t think so, sadly. I had a lot of fun doing that and managed to get through two series without ever shouting “You’re the fifth doctor.” at Peter Davison.

What was the last thing you were curious enough about to look up?

The original characters who lived in McDonaldland, the fictional land McDonald’s invented for promotional purposes.

And if we were in the olden days before the answer (to the above query) was at your online fingertips, what answer might you have enjoyed making up to fill the void?

Ronald McDonald, Grimace, the Hamburglar, Jeffrey Dahmer and a magic talking table called Glent.