A show called the Brig Society makes Marcus Brigstocke sound like a comic with a political axe to grind but he just wants to have a laugh. Chris Price caught up with him.

Trying to make sense of David Cameron’s Big Society on his latest stand-up tour, Marcus Brigstocke knows exactly what he would do if he found himself in office.

“Resign, because the last thing the UK needs is people like me in government,” said the 39-year-old comic. “Maybe if I could do one thing before I resigned, it would be to convince others to resign too.”

In the Brig Society – see what he’s done there? – Marcus stretches his legs as a political idealist. It is the first stand-up show he has written since the last election, so he has quite a lot to say.

“It has been interesting going around the country doing this,” he said. “I was in Harrogate the other day – a conservative enclave of North Yorkshire – and people were wincing as I described myself as a massively over-privileged, over-confident, over-entitled, privately-educated schoolboy and saying it is precisely people like me who should not be left exclusively to run the country, regardless of how certain we are that we could do a good job of it.

“Then you go to the North East, where the austerity measures have bitten hardest and people respond very differently. They all laugh, which is over and above everything what has to happen because I am a comedian, not a politician but they react very differently.”

Despite his comedy bravado, Marcus is clearly humbled by his “blessed path.” A regular on various Radio 4 programmes and theatre star of shows such as Spamalot and the Railway Children, Marcus has been able to spend two years writing and researching this new tour, thanks to being kept employed with other projects.

“I would hate to write a stand-up show if I had just finished the last one and I now had to,” he said.

He has more ambitions to be fulfilled, revealing his dream role would be as Miss Trunchball in Matilda – “I’d give both arms to play that role, which, of course, would mean I was no good as a hammer thrower and already exclude me.”

Oddly, Marcus includes his stint in a Kent rehab centre, that’s not too may miles from his forthcoming Canterbury gig, at the age of 17 as a core part of his charmed existence.

“I was admitted for substance abuse, eating disorders and alcoholism, the whole shebang,” he said.

“It was a monstrous experience and terrifying and emotional but immensely useful in everything I have ever done since.

“For me, the experience of everything going so profoundly wrong and being ejected forcibly from the over-privileged, over-entitled private education that I should have been enjoying and exploiting meant I met different people. Those people changed the way I see the world.

“You become aware that the tiny part of the world that each of us inhabits is just that – tiny. There are a million different things going on with other people. I look at it fondly. My parents were rich enough and concerned enough that I got a lot of help and I was able to put those things straight and they didn’t kill me or destroy anybody else’s life along the way.

“I don’t know whether it is looking at it philosophically but I certainly look at everything I have done with a sense of gratitude and awe.”

Marcus has also learned a few things from appointing his own ‘Cabinet’ of audience members to run his Brig Society.

“I got a woman up on stage the other day to be a minister for the elderly and asked what would be her first policy. She said she would raise the age of consent to 47. I asked ‘why’s that?’ and she said ‘I just want to improve my odds.’”

Marcus Brigstocke’s show, the Brig Society, arrives at Shirley Hall, in the King’s School, Canterbury, on Thursday, October 25 as part of the Canterbury Festival. Tickets £15. Box office 01227 787787.