DARA O Briain is on the road for the first time in three years with his expanded Crowd Tickler tour after his heavyweight run of television commitments.

The 43-year-old South Irishman is in Yorkshire for the week, playing Hull City Hall tonight, Victoria Theatre tomorrow, York Barbican on Thursday and Saturday, with Bradford St George's Hall sandwiched in between on Friday night.

The TV studio has been his been his workplace for such shows as Mock The Week, The Apprentice: You’re Fired! and Star Gazing Live, not forgetting Dara O Briain: School Of Hard Sums for Dave and Dara O Briain’s Science Club for BBC2, but his love of live shows has seen O Brian top up his tour from 65 shows to more than 100.

"The other day, I sat in an empty theatre thinking, ‘I just love these rooms'," he says. "I’m on the board of the Theatres Trust in order to protect these wonderful buildings. It’s not about nimby-ism; it’s because I adore these places. It still gives me such a thrill to walk on stage.”

O Briain, who was born in Bray and grew up in Dublin, has the gift of the blarney that comes alive whenever he performs on stage. "When you arrive at an empty theatre, the potential is immense," he says. "You think, ‘This is going to be magical’. Then, when the show starts and you hear those waves of laughter in the auditorium, it’s just so enjoyable. It’s a huge rush."

Spontaneity is the hallmark of a Dara O Briain gig. "I love the fact that you can shape the entire evening by thinking on your feet. If Plan A doesn’t work, you have to come up with Plan B immediately," says the former mathematics and theoretical physics student from University College, Dublin.

"Improvised riffing with the audience creates a tremendous frisson. It’s like walking a tightrope. The audience love it because they can see you’ve got nothing up your sleeve and that things could very easily go wrong. They realise that this could go anywhere. You’re not given any easy ride."

Explaining his off-the-cuff style that never belittles an audience member, O Briain says: "When I’m questioning the audience, my stance is not, ‘How can I mock this person?’. Instead it’s, ‘I am an eight-year-old meeting this person for the first time. What aspects of them do I want to talk and enthuse about?’.

"Everyone has something to give me. The other day this guy in the audience told me he had a very dull-sounding job in HR [Human Resources]. He said he was the 'comptroller' – no-one ever knows what that means. But it then emerged that in fact he worked in HR for a chocolate company.

York Press:

Dara O Briain in Crowd-Tickling mode

“So I came up with the idea that he would put a large bowl of chocolate down on the desk in front of a potential employee and then turn away. When he turned back, if the potential employee hadn’t got chocolate all over his face, then he’d get the job. If you can survive in an arena of grab-able chocolate without taking any, then you’re the man for the job.”

O Briain continues: “I then thought that his friend might work for a toothpaste company. How great that they could put aside their differences, despite working in jobs that nullify each other. It would be like a tobacconist being friends with a lung transplant surgeon. As long as they don’t talk about work, they’ll be OK.”

Should you be wondering what themes he will discuss in Crowd Tickler, O Briain reveals: "I’ll be talking about the awkward conversations we will have with grandchildren about all the resources we’ve used up and all the wonderful advances we’ve casually wasted, like Concorde and the space shuttle."

An angel therapist will be on his subject list too. "She's leading a campaign to remove fluoride from the water in Ireland because she thinks it’s poisoning the nation," he says. "For sheer energy, you have to admire her campaign.”

O Briain loves demolishing idiotic arguments in his shows too. "It suits comedy," he reasons. "If you take it to its logical conclusion, it’s madness. It’s a reductio ad absurdum.”

First and foremost, however, Crowd Tickler is about jokes, hence the 2015 tour's title. "It’s great to tackle subjects that are more thought-provoking, but I have this dread that people will go, ‘Oh Dara’s show – there’ll be some bit where he bores us with some science thing’," he says.

"I hope with Crowd Tickler that they’re unable to talk because I've beaten them over the head with so much humour and punched them repeatedly in the face with jokes. That's my aim. I want them spent. I want them silently driving back home absorbing it all, while I’m left in the empty theatre quietly wiping the make-up off my face in a mirror surrounded by light bulbs.”

He may make points here and there in the show, "but that’s secondary," he insists. "Above all, I hope that it’s a great night’s entertainment. I hope people walk out and say, ‘Dara’s still got it. I hope he doesn’t leave it another three years!’ If they do that, then I'll be delighted.”

What's more, they can look forward to the November 23 release of Crowd Tickler as O Briain's fifth live DVD, recorded at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith this autumn by Universal Pictures.

Dara O Briain's Crowd Tickler tour visits York Barbican on Thursday and Saturday at 8pm. Ticket update: very few still available on 0844 854 2757 or at yorkbarbican.co.uk