CHARLES HUTCHINSON meets the history man behind the hysterical pub-loving comedian taking on ninny state nonsense in his new live stand-up tour, One Man, One Guvnor.

THERE are two Al Murrays. One is an erudite Oxford history graduate, who understands how Britain once ruled the waves. The other is Al Murray, the Pub Landlord, the bellicose bulldog who can't understand why we still don't .

Ahead of Sunday's show in York, the two merge in What's On's conversation with Murray as he talks about The Pub Landlord in the third person while reflecting on 20 Years At The Lager Top, the subtitle for ale-loving Al's latest release valve for ranting, One Man, One Guvnor.

The tour's title is a nod to Richard Bean's hit comedy for the National Theatre, while shedding one guvnor. After all, there is only one Guvnor, the very voluble one who opened his gaff 20 years ago to embark on his "one man mission as the King Cnut of Common Sense, holding back a tide of bottled beer and ninny state nonsense".

Twenty years, Al, twenty years.

"Basically, it's filed under 'time marches on'," he muses.

How has his mock-xenophobic pub philosopher changed in that time?

"What's happened to him is that it's a bit like one of those sci-fi computer games. He's achieved self-awareness that people have come to see him, so he's responded to it messianically," says Murray. "He's the man with the plan?"

Would that be the masterplan?

"Something approaching the masterplan. The pitch for the show this year is that he's going to form the next government with him as the guvnor...and then there would be no more elections."

Effectively, the Pub Landlord would instal himself as a dictator. "Yes, exactly. He would become a dictator. It's the system of common sense," says Murray.

Next year could see the continuing rise of another man who likes to be pictured with a pint and a tie and shares a desire for Britain to withdraw from Europe: UKIP leader Nigel Farage. Has avuncular Nigel nabbed the Guvnor's political turf?

"Well, maybe he has nicked Al's act, but to be honest, I'm just making great sport of UKIP's emergence because it's the most amazing, absurd situation, though there are many factors to consider," cautions Murray.

So, where does the Guvnor stand on Europe in 2014.

"He has a fairly robust attitude to Europe! He would definitely jettison us from Europe, just because he fancies it," says Murray. "He feels that Europe has been too quiet; maybe he wants another world war."

Murray, the historian, takes a more dispassionate view.

"As a history fan, I think the claims that our age is unique, which seem to be spreading, are pretty shallow. Everyone has gone through dissatisfaction with politics, with democracy. It always involves losing and then going out and figuring out how to win.

"Maybe in this modern, consumerist, me, me, me age, we don't get what we want, but politics can't work like that. It can never work like that.

"Our times are not unique, and we have to engage with our politicians as much as they must engage with us...holding them over a bin while holding my nose!"

Twenty years at the lager top has turned the Pub Landlord into a "national treasure" (Daily Telegraph) and a "bona fide British institution" (the Independent), but could Murray ever have foreseen his monstrous creation sustaining for so long?

"No, I invented him as a stop-gap, so there was no plan, no nothing; it just worked out the way it has. When I first came across his 'attitude', the point was that you could feed anything into it," he says.

"Now, it's the old joke about the prostitute: it's not the work, it's the stairs. For me, after 20 years, it's the travelling, especially the M42, which is always being worked on, but I'm only complaining because I have the luxury of complaining. The opposite would be to not have any work."

The Pub Landlord keeps Al Murray very busy, this latest tour being extended by 40 dates to 92 in total between early September and May 30 next year, but their worlds are poles apart.

"I have the Today programme [BBC Radio 4] on from the start, so the day begins differently from what the Guvnor would choose. He's very different from me, but I do understand his reactionary instinct, We all have it, but it's what you do with it that differs," says Murray.

"I think one of the reasons that the Guvnor might be believable, although he's not supposed to be that believable, is that we all have reactionary moments."

Who can predict where the Guvnor will be in 20 years when Murray will be 66 and pub landlords may be an even more endangered species than they have become already. "Yes, the traditional landlord is a dying breed," says Murray. "It's changed in that they're managers now; they're not the innkeepers of old, and it would be a real shame if they died out.

"The problem is that all these companies have looked at the value of their property and decided they could make more out of the premises if they didn't keep them as pubs, completely forgetting their social role."

His solution? "I would nationalise pubs," he says. "You don't have to nationalisde the railways; just the pubs, and they wouldn't have to run on time." Who's talking at this point? The Guvnor or Murray? Probably both at once, for the only time.

• Al Murray, One Man, One Guvnor – 20 Years At The Lager Top, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.30pm, selling out fast; Harrogate Royal Hall, February 19 2015, 7.30pm. Box office: York, 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york; Harrogate, 01423 502116 or harrogatetheatre.co.uk