COMEDIAN Mark Watson is bringing a new tour to Sussex which will ask how we can make the most out of life.

Inspiration for the This Can’t Be It tour came about after the author and Taskmaster star took a life expectancy test. The result for the 42-year-old was age 78.

He said: “Of course these things are nonsense, but it did make me think ‘if I’m basically through just over half my life, what am I going to do to make the most of it?’.

“That was the inspiration and the original theme of the show, then obviously everything that has happened has made us all think a lot more about how frighteningly brief life can be.

“It’s been weird trying to grapple with the idea that, just at a time when I’d got to this point about thinking about making myself explore the things I wanted to make more of my life, it was the moment we stopped doing anything.

“That’s been my year and a half and this show is a product of it.”

Despite the serious subject matter, however, the show is far from doom and gloom, Mr Watson said.

“I’ve always had kind of big themes in my shows before, but I never let that get in the way of having a good time,” he said.

“At the end of the day, people want to be entertained and aren’t necessarily coming to see me solve the mystery of existence.”

This Can’t Be It will see Mr Watson wrestle with some of the fundamental questions of life, with unusually high levels of audience involvement, with the promise of “a gag rate of an already fast-talking comedian who’s been imprisoned in his house for more than a year”.

The show comes to the Chequer Mead Theatre in East Grinstead on June 18, with tickets available from the venue’s website.