Milton Jones is Out There about desire to be next Prime Minister with manifesto of nonsense

The Kew comedian will be holding up the mirror of truth to society while putting his foot down and lifting the lid on the pedal bin of media lies, while scaling the heights of fashion at the risk of falling into a terrible cravat.

On Saturday, Milton will discuss his life so far – the ups, the downs and why buying his own see-saw was the best decision he ever made – but also contemplating whether he should give all this up to seek the highest office in the land – although how do you get a desk and a swivel chair up a mountain en route? – as he declares his desire to run for Prime Minister with his manifesto of nonsense.

"As well as me doing loads of trademark jokes and little sketchy pieces, the show sees me thinking: with all that’s going on in the world, maybe I should be doing something more serious rather than talking nonsense," says Jones, now 53. "I seem to have a crisis of confidence in terms of: is nonsense of any value? And of course that results in more nonsense rather than less."

Such is the difficulty of trying to mould a show to incorporate a message and a narrative via a barrage of one-liners? "I end up with a massive bag of jokes which probably don't fit, which is really annoying," says Jones.

Then again, Milton Jones Is Out There is not particularly political in its opinions or content. "It's all fairly jokey. There is one pseudo-political joke, which is as near as I get," says Jones. "With my stuff, people remember the joke rather than the point. Though my aim with the tour is to add in a couple of moments of pathos, really questioning whether I’m on the right track."

"Most comics are accentuated versions of themselves," says Milton Jones

Should you be wondering if Jones sees a difference between his comic persona and the real Milton Jones, he says: "I think most comics are accentuated versions of themselves, to some degree. I am, apparently, quite clumsy and I don’t approach things particularly rationally.

"I quite often see the other side of things. The differences are, hopefully, I’m not socially obtuse. I'm quite conventional – I’m married, I have three kids, a house – so it’s almost an escapism from normality. I don’t have to be responsible. I don’t have to pay car tax."

Jones keeps an All My Material file on his computer as a store room for his multitude of jokes. "You’ve got to wade through it, but it’s worth it because there’s loads of stuff in there I’ve forgotten off the top of my head," he says, but is there a formula to coming up with all these quickfire gags?

"I was never good at maths, but there is a mathematics to it. It’s like balancing equations. There’s an ideal format, and yes it can work the other way round, but it’s not quite as elegant. It’s about getting the joke down to the lowest form of words, the minimal effort. That’s what really adds beauty to it," he decides.

Milton Jones Is Out There, York Barbican, Saturday, 8pm. Box office: 0844 854 2757, at yorkbarbican.co.uk or in person from the Barbican.