TV presenter Patrick Kielty is returning to his comedy roots with his first stand-up show in seven years.

The Northern Irish funnyman will be back on stage at the Gulbenkian in Canterbury with his latest tour, Borderline.

The show is the first time Patrick, who has appeared on shows such as Live at the Apollo and This Morning, has stepped out on a solo tour since 2015.

However, the comedian puts that down to a busy family life.

“My last tour was 2015. There was a baby born in 2016. And another baby was born in 2018, which essentially meant that nobody was leaving the house because there were nappies to be changed,” says Patrick, who is married to So You Think You Can Dance presenter Cat Deeley.

“Now I am at a point where I have got a six-year-old and a four-year-old, and I am sitting there going, ‘hmm, Daddy's tired. Maybe Daddy needs a little break’. So Daddy's going to go back on the road.”

Taking a short rest from his duties as a father-of-two, Borderline sees Patrick Kielty back at the forefront of satirical comedy, with his own personal take on national identity and what a post-Brexit future holds.

“When I did the last show, my life had changed a lot,” says the 51-year-old. “For this show, the world has changed a lot. [Borderline] is about identity and how we feel about ourselves and each other. We've had Brexit and Trump, and all of this turmoil coming from Northern Ireland.”

Patrick grew up in the village of Dundrum in County Down, so his exploration of his homeland’s recent history is a personal endeavour.

“What was weird was actually getting back out there and talking about stuff in Northern Ireland that maybe you grew up with, but that you never thought a wider audience would actually have any interest in,” Patrick explains. “Now, as a result of Brexit, we have got the Northern Ireland Protocol and all of these other things. So it’s nice to get up there and try to make sense of what's going on.

“What we've done in Northern Ireland may become more important to the rest of the world. Because we've come through a heck of a lot, we might actually have a little superpower. We should be more vocal in telling our story in a positive way.”

And that’s not the only positive thing to come out of the show - like many performers, the TV host is also thrilled to be back in front of a live audience after lockdown.

“The sense of a community and the interaction with the audience feels even more special this time around,” he says. “There is a weird thing that you can only get from being on stage in front of a live audience. They are feeding off your performance, and you're feeding off their energy.”

Fans who have been waiting the best part of a decade to see Patrick back in theatres should have plenty to be excited about, as the show is set to deliver lots of laughs, plenty of warmth and, to top it all off, something rather unexpected.

“It's a very personal show. What people seem to be saying as they come out of the theatre is, ‘I wasn't expecting that’. They thought they were coming for something which was going to be political satire, and they find that actually the show is more personal than that.”

Patrick Kielty is at the Gulbenkian Arts Centre, Canterbury, on Friday, May 27. Book online here or call 01227 769 075.