Just A Quickie with… comedian Stewart Lee, reluctant occupant of our 21st century Carpet Remnant World.

MAVERICK social observer on late-night TV and very long tours, novelist, newspaper columnist and show director, Stewart Lee was stand-up’s youthful iconoclast in a former life. In 2012, he gawps blankly at News 24 as Britain burns down around him, or blinks weirdly at the vast wayside retail outlets during endless journeys to and from increasingly indistinct provincial theatres. Once he lived on the pleasure planet but now he is trapped in Carpet Remnant World. “And so are you,” he warns.

Seekers of the bleak truth will discover more at York Theatre Royal tomorrow and at The Shed in Hovingham in July.

CHARLES HUTCHINSON tracks down this modern-day Cassandra on his endless travels.

For your new show, Stewart, you have asked yourself one particular question, so we will ask you the same question: “What can a sexless middle-aged married man, whose life now consists mainly of watching Scooby Doo cartoons with a four-year-old boy, possibly find to write comedy about?”

“I wondered if it would be possible to write a show which appears only to deal with these themes, and yet one which it appeared the comedian had intended to be about more interesting things, and yet which, apparently without the comedian realising it, appeared to be about something else altogether.

“Thus, the comedian Stewart Lee is trying to write a show about Utopias, but appears against his will to be performing a show about middle-aged dad stuff because that’s all he knows about, when in fact he is really doing a show about his fear of death, without actually realising it.”

Do you ever visit those “vast wayside retail outlets” that make you blink weirdly at them on your journeys to and from gigs?

“Yes. Big supermarkets, service stations, furniture places – 21st century sci-fi spaces.”

If you could return to pleasure planet, what would it look like? Is it ever likely to happen?

“Life is better now really than it was before marriage and kids. Enforced selflessness is liberating in a way.”

How do you and I and the rest of us escape from Carpet Remnant World? Or is there no escape?

“There’s no escape now. Late capitalism has reprogrammed us all into selfish consumers with no idea of the bigger picture.”

If you’re Officially The 41st Best Stand-Up Ever, what does that say about the misguided folk who somehow found 40 people funnier than you?

“They’re not misguided. I completely understand why they wouldn’t like me and deeply regret boring people who have come to see me in error. I’m an acquired taste and I can see why people wouldn’t like me.”

And finally, on a lighter note, what simple things make you laugh?

“People stepping on rakes. Jackass stuff.”

• Stewart Lee’s Carpet Remnant World takes over York Theatre Royal for two hours tomorrow from 7.30pm and returns to North Yorkshire on July 13 and 14 at The Shed, Hovingham Village Hall, in a streamlined, 75-minute version fit for purpose at this summer’s Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets are still for York on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; Hovingham’s Saturday show has sold out but a handful remain for the first night on 01653 668494 or theshed.co.uk Both nights start at 8pm.