MOCK the Week favourite, Andy Parsons is coming to Cheltenham tomorrow night with his Peak B*llsh*t tour. He spoke to the Standard this morning to explain why we should bother going.

Before I could even ask him any questions, he was eager to let me know how keen he is to come to the Cotswolds.

“I’m really looking forward to the show tomorrow night. I’ve never done the Pump Rooms before, but the last tour I did in Cheltenham was really great,” Andy said.

Then we got down to business.

Are you bracing yourself for me to ask you to say something funny? 

"I’m trusting you to find humour in something I say and that the write-up will make it look sparkling."

Why should we go see your show? 

"Given everything that’s currently happening in the world, humour can save us from misery.

"And let’s face it, in Cheltenham on a Friday night, there’s very few better things to do then come laugh at the a** end of the world."

So your show is called Peak B*llsh*t, does this mean you think times have gotten sh**tier? 

"I don’t think times have necessarily gotten sh**tier, but there are now more people in charge who are happier not to tell us the truth.

"Tomorrow night we are going to come together to heal a divided nation."

That sounds very political, do you have any political ambitions we should know about?

"Ha, I think that would be a very long path to glory. I have no intention of becoming an MP. I’m very happy to keep doing what I do."

(Perhaps Andy is praticising not telling the truth? Only time will tell if his name appears on a ballot paper.)

You spend a lot of time touring, does it feel like you do the same thing every night?

"No. Given the speed of the news cycle at the moment, it feels like everything has changed every time you wake up. There’s never a dull moment."

How do you get between gigs? In an appropriately comedic banged-up car or do you have a private jet now?

"Our tour bus is really a very small car, with no room for the bed or fridge I’m afraid.

"Given the state of the world at the moment, private jets and their owners are getting a bit of a bad rep.

"We try to be as 'green' as possible. If we could cycle to gigs, we would attempt it."

Who is the funniest comedian to work with behind the scenes, or as soon as the cameras stop rolling do the jokes just drop off?

"Some people are ‘on’ when they’re off camera, then ‘off’ when they’re on camera, which is pretty disastrous for a career in comedy.

"But perhaps my most entertaining memory was being in New Zealand for Flight of the Conchords. It was 8am in the morning and I was on a ferry with Russell Howard, Greg Proops, Lee Mack and the Flight of the Conchords team; all off to the winery for the day. Greg Proops was just on top form."

(Greg is known for his role on ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway.’)

Perhaps the winery had something to do with it then, I assume you have to be sober on stage!

"It was on the way to the winery, not back!"

What were you like in high school – did you have many embarrassing moments, or were you just too smooth?

"I never went to high school, we call it secondary school." (I was betraying my foreignness here.)

"But not really, I did a lot of acting in school, that was my thing.

"Then when I got to uni everyone seemed to take it so seriously, and I was happy not to take it seriously.

"I got into the stand-up comedy crowd, where worse came to worse I could just fall over and it would work ok."

I’ve got to be honest, I had no idea what to ask a comedian. What would you have asked if you were the interviewer?

"I can tell you what not to ask: 'Tell us a joke.' I think comedians feel that if you want to hear our jokes you ought to come to the show, not read it in the paper.

"Also, anything to do with women in comedy; even male comedians are constantly being asked this now.

"In terms of what to ask: I think all comedians want to hear, 'I’ve seen you many times, you were absolutely brilliant each time; is there any reason why you won’t be brilliant again?'"

I’ll keep that in mind!

I’m not sure I’ve managed to make Andy’s interview look sparkling like he hoped, with the form of an interview involving a fair bit of plonking on the page.

But as Andy suggested, if you want to see the comedian in top form, you’ll just have to go to his show.

Andy Parsons is in the Cheltenham Pittville Pump Room tomorrow night (September 22) at 8pm, as part of his Peak B*llsh*t tour. Get tickets here.