IRISH comedian Sean Hughes has a new show, one where he is in two minds all the time to tell you what's going on in Mumbo Jumbo at The Duchess in York on November 12.

Throughout his life, and not least his 28 years in comedy, Hughes has been battling to stay on the right side of sanity. "This is because in middle age I've realised that the two sides of my brain are in constant conflict," he says. "There is common sense against mumbo jumbo and mumbo jumbo seems to have the upper hand."

Sean's show consists of such stories as being serenaded at the break of dawn by The Cure's Robert Smith, trekking mountain gorillas in Rwanda and coming to the conclusion that he will never have a proper conversation with his dear mum.

"There'll be a few poems and a three-minute musical about ageing too," says Hughes, who incidentally spent part of 2015 playing station master Mr Perks in the latest London production of Mike Kenny's The Railway Children at King's Cross Theatre.

York Theatre Royal pantomime stalwart Martin Barrass is now reprising that role in London, having starred as Perks in the summer run in York at the National Railway Museum's Signal Box Theatre.

Hughes took a nine-year break from stand-up, making his mark in The Last Detective, playing alongside Sienna Miller in Shakespeare's As You Like It and joining the soap opera ranks as Eileen Grimshaw's love interest, Pat, in Coronation Street. He has just recorded the Christmas special for BBC1's Casualty. His last stage show, Penguins, won a Herald Angels Award at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Doors open at 7pm on November 12; box office, theduchess.co.uk