Life according to Arthur

“Don’t focus too much on the title!”, laughs Arthur. “It’s just me doing what I usually do, telling jokes, trying to make people laugh, telling a few stories.”

It’s not born of some great desire to make a clean breast of it. Instead, it’s Arthur in his usual full flow, this time with a few of his poems and also a few readings from his

recently-published memoir My Name Is Daphne Fairfax.

To all this, he’ll be adding a few thoughts on Horsham. He’s been mugging up already.

“But I suppose a lot of it is revelatory, a lot about myself, about show business, about life.”

Inevitably there will be a bit of grumpiness from a man so famously one of TV’s Grumpy Old Men.

“I was at the Sony Awards last night. I was pretty grumpy there. I hate wearing a black tie and all that nonsense. Chris Evans was being like a 12-year-old who had just discovered vodka. I don’t like excess enthusiasm. It’s a young person thing.”

Also a young person thing is mangling the language. “I am very hard on the misuse of the word literally. If I hear someone saying ‘I was like literally over the moon’, I say ‘No, you weren’t unless you can prove to me that you are an astronaut!’

And while he’s on the subject, The Guardian’s Ultimate Gift Guide was another: “Unless they really were promising that there would never be another one!”

Expect similar railing (quite a lot of it against young people, he admits) in Horsham: “I do have a bit of a structure, but there is a lot of scope for spontaneity.”

Plus poetry: “I do also do a couple of my own poems,” says Arthur whose TV credits include QI, Have I Got News For You, The One Show and Radio 4’s Loose Ends, Balham Bash and Radio 2’s Smith Lectures.

His Horsham show starts at 8pm, Tickets on 01403 750220 or www.thecapitolhorsham.com.