Stephen Merchant, Hello Ladies, Grand Opera House, York, October 10

DO not be confused.

Yes, the extremely tall Stephen Merchant used to do stand-up before all that Emmy, BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning TV success came his way with co-creator Ricky Gervais in The Office and Extras on the BBC.

Nevertheless, it is perfectly right for promoters to bill Stephen Merchant Live: Hello Ladies as his “first-ever stand-up tour”.

“It’s exactly that,” says Stephen, whose September to December stretch on the road will send him to the Grand Opera House in York on October 10, as well as London, New York and all over Britain.

“I never toured before, so most people don’t realise that I was a stand-up comedian before I met Ricky Gervais and his coat-tails.

“I used to do it in the late-Nineties and occasionally I went out of town – including a couple of weeks in 2001 in Edinburgh in Rubbernecker; 20 minutes each with Ricky, Jimmy Carr and Robin Ince.”

What did he learn from those nascent comedy experiences? “That I didn’t feel the need to carry on doing it,” says the Bristolian writer, performer, director and comic actor. “I didn’t get enough of a thrill from the smell of the greasepaint and the roar of the crowd.

“It wasn’t that it was frustrating; there was an anxiety to doing it and it was easier not to do it, and by then the TV work was starting.

“I think I quite enjoyed stand-up, but I didn’t enjoy it sufficiently. I stepped off stage one day and found I didn’t miss it.”

Yet fast forward to 2011 and Stephen is saying “Hello Ladies” on a stage near you. “A couple of years ago, I felt that me and stand-up comedy had unfinished business. It’s like remembering an old girlfriend and thinking, ‘why didn’t this work out?’. So I took her out for dinner, low key and one step at a time, and I found that I had to rebuild from scratch.”

The creative process has been “long-winded, time-consuming, finding the angle” for the show.

“We had to anticipate what the audience would be expecting as they don’t know me as a stand-up; they have a sense of me as a personality or from what I’ve done on TV, but I have to define my parameters,” says Stephen.

“What I’m really trying to talk about is how little life has changed…and my search for a wife. Being tall and witty is one thing, but as I say in the show, it doesn’t change the core of who you are or the inherent awkwardness of who you are. It doesn’t instantly make you Warren Beatty.”

Who are you, Stephen Merchant, in 2011? “If you don’t know who you are by the time you’re famous, fame will define you, but I suddenly found fame quite late in life, so I don’t feel defined by it and it’s not something that I wake up and think about every day,” he says.

“Apart from giving you security, I haven’t found it’s changed my inner being. I work hard not to change because what I do is observe what’s around me; I still go to the pub, I still go shopping…but I can’t listen into conversations any more.”

Whereas tomorrow’s comedy act at the Grand Opera House, Russell Kane, will be mulling over coping with his sudden single status at 31 after a steady stream of girlfriends from the age of 16, Stephen Merchant will be candid in his reflections on his failed wife-hunting.

The tour blurb has Stephen saying “life can be lonely as a TV writer so this tour is a great opportunity for me to get out there and meet my fans. And make at least one of them my wife”.

The truth may be a tad different. “Hello Ladies is not specifically a search for a wife; it’s more of a discussion of my search, the effort, the trouble, the misfortune, the failing. It’s a catalogue of mistakes,” says Stephen, who reveals that one of his first loves was Woody Allen because he wrote about such mistakes in his films.

“Everyone knows what’s at stake, the jeopardy. Everyone knows how embarrassing it is when it goes wrong, the anxieties. That’s why it’s inherently funny.

“In good comedy, you have something at stake. Like in the sitcoms we’ve done, where we make them want something in life, otherwise you can’t relate to them or empathise with them unless they have something to lose.”

He is drawn to comedians who “confess things and don’t act above things”. “Though if I was really to analyse my comedy, there’s a gap between me and the person on stage, which is a self-preservation thing,” says Stephen. I’m telling stories that were true in my 20s, my 30s, true at some point, that I’ve mushed together, so they’re all born of reality.”

In other words, they are not-so-tall stories from a tall man.

•Stephen Merchant, Hello Ladies, Grand Opera House, York, October 10, 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or grandoperahouseyork.org.uk. Hello Ladies will be filmed for release on DVD & Blu Ray by Universal Pictures UK on November 14.

Did you know?

Coming next from co-writers, co-directors and co-stars Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais on BBC2 in November will be Life’s Too Short, a fake documentary that follows the day-to-day existence of actor Warwick Davies.