Milton Jones is taking his comedy in a slightly new direction, but he’ll be bringing his crazy hair and crazier shirts along as usual, as he tells CHARLES HUTCHINSON.

MILTON Jones, the shock-haired spinner of one-liners, is heading in a new direction in his latest touring show, Milton Jones And The Temple Of Daft.

Rather than quips with everything, he is venturing into uncharted territory by using the jokes within a broader story where he takes on the mantle of Indiana Jones, dons a hat, then another hat and another hat, as he embarks on a journey into surrealist comedy.

That journey began last Wednesday and takes him to Harrogate Royal Hall on Wednesday and York Barbican on Thursday next week, with further Yorkshire gigs to follow in Leeds and Hull.

Not that Milton Jones is swapping joke-cracking for whip-cracking in the Indiana Jones mould. “No, I’m just trying to freshen things up, give the show some direction, stretch myself and keep myself interested,” says the 50-year-old Kew comedian. “Having a story helps me go from Joke A to Joke C by finding a Joke B. Basically, previous tours have been lots of jokes in different forms, but basically lots of jokes. This is more of a story, more like one of my radio shows [on BBC Radio 4].

“It’s more stretching for me and probably more satisfying for the audience, and one other benefit is that I’m using a microphone on my head rather than rather in my hand, which means I can move around the stage more and I’m not restricted.”

The Temple Of Daft began with the “Indiana Jones/Milton Jones overlap, which admittedly is very small”.

“It started off with me noticing that I had the same surname as Indiana Jones, and it has all transpired from there,” says Milton. “It loosely, and I say loosely, follows a kind of adventure-archaeology type story, with some archaeology jokes as the starting point when I was writing.”

What brought on Milton’s decision to favour a more narrative style?

“Two things. When people see you on telly, they want to come and see the same sort of thing when they see a live show, but obviously not the same jokes. Moving to a narrative was a way of keeping the same style,” he says.

 

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“It begins to mine other areas of jokes as well, in terms of, if you can do a scene where you’re talking between two people – even though I’m the only person there – that’s a different sort of writing than just one-liner after one-liner.

“It helps if you have a target, with a structure in place where you can then begin to fit things in around it.”

In another departure from his past practices, Milton has used a director, Ed Gaughan, to help him to focus the flow of the show. “Without a director, you become very good at what you’re good at, but by having an outside eye, someone is stretching you, though it’s more painful as you’re used to being in control with stand-up,” he says.

“Ed was recommended to me by various people like Pappy’s Fun Club and I brought him in quite late on, feeling I had to learn what I’d written first and once it was in my head, we could re-shape individual things and scenes. He was very good at making things clearer, so he was definitely good for me and in the long term, it will make my shows better.”

The new format also gives Milton the chance to revisit his acting skills. “Years ago I started as an actor, and I’d quite like to incorporate more of it. For instance, previously the footprint of the tour has been I’ve gone on and done 15 minutes as a character, and then there’s a support act, and then I do the whole second half,” he says.

“I like to feel that I can now perform on the whole stage rather than hiding behind a microphone, so I’ll play around with props, such as a wigwam, and as before I’ll be using an overhead projector. There’ll be three chairs and and I’ve got lots of hats, which is a quick way of differentiating between characters.”

In the past, Milton has opened shows in the guise of his granddad. For The Temple Of Daft, he is introducing a cameo of another family member, one with a beard, a ruck sack and the flag of every nation in the world.

“I quite like warming the audience up with an obscure character to begin with, then making it more of a show, and this time it’s my great-uncle, Sir Randolph Digby Jones,” he reveals. “He’s an explorer, who’s just back from everywhere, though he’s never been anywhere nicer than where he is tonight, wherever it is that night on the tour.”

Milton Jones’s diary is looking as busy as ever in 2015. “It’s not often I can see a whole year ahead, but the tour goes to the end of June, then I do two weeks in Edinburgh, and I do another two months in the autumn, by the looks of it, so that will be seven months,” he says.

“I’ve got another radio show to fit in; it’ll be the 11th series we’ve done for Radio 4, though we haven’t worked out when we’re going to do that yet. I’ve got other writing projects, so let’s put it that way, that I need to get on and do in my spare time, and there are odd things, you know. What am I doing? Celebrity Squares, in March, and there’ll be more Mock the Week. Then there’s always the next tour to think about.”

• MIlton Jones And The Temple Of Daft, at Harrogate Royal Hall, Wednesday; York Barbican, Thursday; Leeds Grand Theatre, May 24; Hull City Hall, June 6; all at 8pm. Box office: Harrogate, 01423 502116 or at harrogatetheatre.co.uk; York, 0844 854 2757 or yorkbarbican.co.uk; Leeds, 0844 848 2700 or leedsgrandtheatre.com; Hull, 01482 300300.