In his first stand up show this century, Paul Merton is stepping away from the world of improvisational comedy.Chris Price found out why.

For someone known for his surreal wit, Paul Merton is returning to very traditional inspirations for his first stand up show since 1998.

A working class boy at heart, it is not a surprise that class and religion are heavily themed in a show entitled Out of my Head, written to give an insight into the workings of the Have I Got News For You stalwart’s mind.

At an early age he faced victimisation, growing up attending a Jesuit school which had become a comprehensive. Class was a major subject in his early comedy and still fascinates him today.

“They are traditional themes in my show but they are all still going on,” said the 54-year-old.

“We have just had a Budget where our biggest earners have had 5% cut off their rate of tax. Apparently that is good for business but it is obvious our class system is thriving and as strong as ever.

“People talk about dinner party conversation but when I was growing up we never had dinner parties. The idea of having someone round your house to have a dinner party never occurred to us.”

Paul will visit Kent four times on his 50-date tour and he is no stranger to the county. He has been to his fellow Have I Got News For You panellist Ian Hislop’s home in Sissinghurst many times, a house he describes as “very traditional, very English, very Ian.”

He said: “I like Kent a lot. I love London when I am here but I love the countryside too. I was recently down on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, which is a great tourist attraction. It is one of the great railways of the world.”

It was a rare break for the comedian, who has had to put the hours in for this stand up show. For nearly 15 years, Paul’s stage career has been taken over by improvisational comedy. As a member of the Comedy Store Players and with his Impro Chums, Paul has often worked out what he is going to do on stage on the back of a cigarette packet at the venue bar, so writing a script for his new tour has been a shock to the system.

He said: “It is much harder than improv. With improv you have a little training but you don’t have to write it. You just have to do it. This is a big job, which involves a lot of concentration. Before the two preview shows in Margate (at the Theatre Royal), I was worrying 'is this going to work, is that right?’ Luckily it all came together beautifully.”

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Paul has been a panellist on Radio 4’s Just A Minute for 23 years and on BBC1’s Have I Got News For You for 22 years.

He said: “Some people assume that with shows like Have I Got News For You it does not matter what the show is like because people will watch it anyway. That is not true.

“If one show is not good, people will watch next week but if that week is not good then people will not be so loyal. So far, no one says that about Have I Got News For You. It is about doing the best you can.”

On his co-panellist Ian Hislop, the only person to have appeared in every episode in the show’s history, he said: “Ian comes at the show from a different perspective – in a journalistic way.

“He makes a very important contribution. With something like the Leveson Inquiry, as a journalist he can talk about the dangers of gagging the press. Once you start gagging the press, you are in real trouble and he can say that.”

Paul Merton’s new stand up show Out of my Head comes to Dartford’s Orchard Theatre on Easter Monday. Tickets £24, concessions £3 off. Box office 01322 220000. He is at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre on Tuesday, April 24. Tickets £23. Box office 01227 787787. Paul visits Tunbridge Wells’ Assembly Hall Theatre on Monday, April 30. Tickets £23, concessions £20. Box office 01892 530613. His final Kent date is at Chatham’s Central Theatre on Saturday, May 26. Tickets £22.50. Box office 01634 338338.