Jeremy Hardy is getting old, grumbling away with the best of them and enjoying himself enormously in the process. It’s also why his shows sell out everywhere he goes and what we have come to expect of him after decades on the comedy circuit.

“In the old days, politicians were like the bad guys, or the bosses, but now that I’m older than most people in the government, I understand those grumpy old colonels who write to The Daily Telegraph complaining about how things have gone to the dogs. It must be enormously annoying when you’re 150 years old and fought in the Boer War and you’re seeing how all these 30-year-olds are messing things up,” the comedian muses.

“I mean, look what’s going on with this coalition government. It has destroyed the Lib Dems. It’s fascinating to see how they got themselves into this ghastly mess and how Nick Clegg has become such a lost and tragic figure.”

Yes, Jeremy Hardy is still on his soapbox, ranting and raving to anyone who will listen, and making us laugh so hard we wet our pants in the process. But that’s why he’s still selling so popular, popping up in Oxfordshire consistently over the past few months. At the Cornerstone in Didcot tonight, he will be regaling all and sundry with his topical observations on the UK’s polit-ical life and current affairs and enjoying every moment of it.

“I love being on the road. It’s how I started, it’s where I come from. I really enjoy the sense that it’s all happening there and then. I love that feeling of immediacy and the fact that nothing is cut out. When you listen to a radio programme that has been edited down from a live recording, it’s always been commodified and turned into something else. But on stage it’s all there, and it is only happening that night.”

But why put himself through it?

“I like the feeling that I’m touching base with people. They get to see my progressive decay. Because I’m on the radio (he’s the presenter of Radio 4’s Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation) people don’t know what I look like. They think I’m in my 70s. They have this vision of a Wilfred Pickles-type character! So I like performing in these smaller spaces because you can see the audience, and you are more aware of them. When you’re at the back of the circle in bigger venues, you can’t see anything, and you’re basically watching TV. I can’t see the point of that. There is a Nuremberg Rally element to it.”

However, if you’re the kind of person who hates the spotlight, rest assured, Jeremy won’t pester you. “I don’t hassle the audience. If you’ve got no ideas, don’t bother the front row with questions about what they do for a living. That’s just to distract them from your own lack of material. I’m like a folk singer touring the country who promises not to sing any horrible tunes!”

One reason why Jeremy has such devoted fans is that they are drawn to his downbeat and very British stage persona, which he wraps around his subversive and satirical stand-up routine.

“Obviously, I’m a professional misery guts,” he deadpans. “That’s what we do in this country. We have a sort of wartime, chipper resignation. We’re cheerful, even though everything is absolutely ghastly. I was born in 1961, and that mood was still around then. It was only 16 years after the War, and you still heard people talking about it and saw people walking around with limbs missing.

“So the misery guts persona works well for me because, for a start, people aren’t sure how genuine it is. But they also like characters such as Victor Meldrew, Tony Hancock and Leonard Cohen. People like miserable acts. Throughout post-war British comedy, there have been characters like Captain Mainwaring and the Steptoes. We like that attitude because life is quite hard and disappointing and a lot of things go wrong.

“A lot of people feel buffeted. Life is what happens when nothing else works. There is no point having a grandiose plan, because suddenly the roof falls in and you have to rethink and do something different. That makes people feel powerless. The spirit of resignation, muddling through and making the best of things is peculiarly British.”

Jeremy Hardy’s audiences are also attracted to the political vein that runs through his humour: “I talk about politics because I’m interested in it, just as comedians who are interested in sport talk about that. I discuss politics in the broadest sense — it’s not all about trade figures and you don’t need to bring along a notebook,” he teases.

So what comes first?

“First and foremost I’m a comedian, not a politician. I first became interested in politics during the era of Mrs Thatcher. I felt everything which was good about my country was under attack. But I wasn't thinking, ‘I can sort this out with my irreverent and sideways look at politics’. People say that comedy can change things. But I think AK-47s are more effective.”

It’s not all highbrow, however; Jeremy also addresses such diverse subjects as transgender people, hip-hop music, the different roles we play with different people, as well as a large sector on class, one of our favourite national obsessions: “Class is a big issue in politics at the moment. There is a big difference between the old-fashioned, noblesse oblige, paternalistic Tories, and the current lot for whom government is like the first day of the grouse season.

“And while Tory columnists sometimes say they’re big fans of mine, that’s because the right sees the left as amusing court jesters. To them, we’re like the musicians at the Cotton Club, inferior, but rhythmic.”

  • Jeremy Hardy
  • Cornerstone, Didcot
  • Tonight (Friday) at 8pm
  • The event has sold out cornerstone-arts.org.
  • Also visit jeremyhardy.co.uk