HIS Edinburgh Fringe run at an end, Irish wit Dylan Moran will now take his Dr Cosmos show on its British travels, playing the Grand Opera House in York on November 4, the day after his 47th birthday.

While it might feel as though Moran has an intricately conceived game plan in place, given that he announces a new comedy tour approximately every three years, that feeling would be wholly wrong, however.

"I’m glad to be able to say that I don’t know how often I tour, because I can’t really deal with knowing exactly what I’m going to be doing. But I do enjoy touring and I’m really looking forward to this one. It’s great fun getting to go places," says Moran, who sets out on the road on Monday (September 3).

A reader and a thinker, Moran is always alert to the comedic or philosophical possibilities all around him as he reflects on love, politics, misery and the everyday absurdities of life. Never is this more apparent than when he is on tour.

"I try to make myself very responsive, and you’re always on when you’re touring, constantly receiving and transmitting, but you can’t be like that all the time," he says. "You have to come home and be boring dad. Which I’m very good at apparently. And yes, they tell me that in no uncertain terms."

Born in Navan and now living in Edinburgh, the Irish comic, actor and illustrator has made his mark with such live shows as Monster, What It Is and Off The Hook, combined with screen work in the Channel 4 sitcom Black Books, BBC comedy-drama How Do You Want Me?, brittle Irish film Calvary and zombie romcom Shaun Of The Dead.

He is never more alive than when he is working his material before a live audience, as he will be until December 8 on the Dr Cosmos tour. "I have high hopes for this show, I’m really into it. And I’m really into what an incredible time it is to be doing comedy. I want people to come in and have a great time and go home feeling better," says Moran.

York Press:

"We’re confused about what’s happening to us now, and that’s why you get Brexit and you get Trump," says Dylan Moran. Picture: Andy Hollingworth

"I’m not going to ask people to understand anything too complicated or anything that I feel can’t be understood. A lot of it is about pulling the squirrels out of the bag and giving them a name or a number. Let’s just say that I’m organising the squirrels."

Just who is this Dr Cosmos of whom Dylan Moran speaks? Is it a fictional man of the world? Or could it be the Irish comedian himself in stage guise? "I get these ideas for themes or identities that obsess me for years and Dr Cosmos has been around for a while. I’m writing a pilot episode which has Dr Cosmos as the title and it’s about all kind of things, like consumerism and mental health," Moran explains.

"It’s the idea of a snake oil salesman, like those ads you see on the net about losing your tummy by eating bananas or not eating bananas, whatever it is. A lot of the live show is about people just trying to cope. The big things still apply: family is still there and the root systems don’t change, it’s just the way we’re living has."

Much of this new way of living has to do with the technology that seems constantly at our fingertips, and Moran is not exactly approving of this dependency on screens. "Look at the mystery that has been taken away from us: the whole romance of human history was made by all the imagination and projection of people in one place wondering what was over the hill," he says.

"There was myth and storytelling, but now everything we could concoct in the dark has been replaced by the crystal clear Samsung LED screen. All those deliberations that were needless but very human and showed how inventive, capable and nutty we were have been swept away now."

Where does such over-reliance on technology that answers all our questions in a nano-second leave the art of storytelling? "I think people are desperate for it; we really need it. And we need to be around the fire and hear it. We’re confused about what’s happening to us now, and that’s why you get Brexit and you get Trump and you get all this polarisation," says Moran.

For those craving stories and storytellers, the innovative-thinking Dylan Moran still has plenty to say. “I write a lot, so I’ve got tons of material. That’s never been a problem for me; the problem is deciding exactly what to do with it." he reveals. "Much of what I have for this show is about the incredibly fluid nature of now, how disorientating and tiring it all is and how it feels to try and orientate yourself and stay foursquare on the Earth."

By Brian Donaldson and Charles Hutchinson

Dylan Moran: Dr Cosmos visits Leeds City Varieties, October 28 and 29, 7.30pm; Grand Opera House, York, November 4, 8pm. Box office: Leeds, 0113 243 0808 or at cityvarieties.co.uk; York, 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york