Keith Barret has become a household name as the chauffeur with a dismal love-live. Now, finally visiting York, his alter ego, Rob Brydon, talks to CHARLES HUTCHINSON about life as the Welsh windbag.

THE Keith Barret Show - Live should have been live in York last October. Filming commitments for Keith's alter ego, Rob Brydon, forced the show's postponement until next week, but the eight-month hiatus has worked out all for the good.

In the meantime Rob has made "the best film I've been in", and Keith Barret has become all the more familiar to audiences from a second series of shows for the hapless Welsh chauffeur turned chat-show host.

"The tour had to be postponed because I had to film A Cock And Bull Story. It's an adaptation of Tristam Shandy, the Lawrence Sterne novel," he says.

"I play Uncle Toby, and then half way through it becomes a modern film in which we play ourselves trying to film the story of Tristram Shandy! The book is about how difficult it is to write a story, so Michael Winterbottom's idea was to make a film about how difficult it is to make a film - and I think it's the best film I've been in."

While we wait for Brydon's turn as Mr Toby or not Toby, he turns his attention once more to Keith Barret, his comic creation who attained notoriety on the cult BBC2 show Marion & Geoff.

Since the tour's postponement, Keith has appeared in a Christmas special and his own second series. "I think that will help the tour," says Rob. "The audiences certainly have a greater knowledge of Keith now.

"On the surface, his humour is quite gentle; there aren't any catchphrases there, and he just says 'it's a bit of fun', but the trick is, you have to concentrate with Keith, and that does take time to seep in. Now the audiences seem to know Keith's back story and they get what he's about."

The live show will follow the format of the television series, wherein Keith, downtrodden but forever positive as the most famous divorc in Wales, reflects on his woeful track record in relationships.

"The thing that most people pick up on is that he's divorced and that's a big part of him but what I've enjoyed developing is a more satirical edge to him, where he can comment on current issues, like hoodies and mobile phones and all the ways of modern life," Rob says.

Adopting the persona of Keith Barret is a liberating comic opportunity for Rob. "I find it easier, to a degree, performing as Keith rather than Rob Brydon. I know what Keith's opinion is more than my own. He'll be set in his thinking, he'll react in a certain way, but I'll change from moment to moment, so with Keith I'm going at it from a definite viewpoint," he says.

"He can be quite prudish, he can be shocked but he's also quite shocking. The device in a character like Keith is that you gain laughs from his innocence and naivet, causing offence where he doesn't mean to.

"That's an old comic convention, that thing of protesting you didn't mean to offend, like Frankie Howerd or Barry Humphreys'."

Rob has always enjoyed this tightrope-walking brand of comedy. "If I could choose only one comedian, it would be Barry Humphries. There's something about camp comedians I like, Frankie Howerd, Barry Humphries, Kenneth Williams, but then I also like Jewish comedians, Mel Brooks and Jerry Seinfeld."

The character of Keith Barret has long roots of its own. "I first did a more cartoon version of him when I was at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1984, and then I did him on Radio Wales. On Geoff & Marion, we made it more realistic with more pathos, and now with The Keith Barret Show there's more fun again."

Keith Barret will return for another series on BBC2 - "in exactly what format, we're discussing", says Rob - and soon there will be a new Rob Brydon characterisation to enjoy in the autumn. He is to play Dr Paul Hamilton, a dissatisfied British astrologer who begins a new life at the Royal Australian Observatory, in a new BBC series by Aussie writer Harry Cripps.

"Hamilton has a brain the size of a planet but he's socially awkward, so he's a fish out of water - another great comic convention!" says Rob. "I'm the sole British person in it, and it took time to develop because it's a co-production with Australia, but I certainly fancied the idea of being in Australia for ten weeks in the spring!"

Rob Brydon in The Keith Barret Show - Live, Grand Opera House, York, Monday, 7.30pm. Tickets: £14.50 on 0870 606 3595.

Updated: 09:38 Friday, June 24, 2005