“I’M prepared to kill myself for comedy.”

Richard Herring is nothing if not wholeheartedly dedicated to his craft.

And by the sounds of it, this is not a wildly exaggerated statement.

Attempting to leap onto a settee - the eponymous hero of his latest show Lord of the Dance Settee - on stage, he somehow miscalculated the distance and ended up with a bloody gash in his leg.

But the show did go on and he bravely powered on through.

“I do a bit of jumping and dancing around and I’ve got myself hurt a couple of times,” he admits. “One night I got quite a big gash on my leg and there was quite a lot of blood. There is an element of danger. I might die so you get that added frisson. If you like seeing an old man hurt himself it’s the show for you.”

A departure from his more thematic tours, Lord of the Dance Settee is possibly his most tame stand-up act to date.

That is, compared to the insanity that was Hitler Moustache, which saw Herring grow the Nazi leader’s signature toothbrush moustache as a form of social experiment and vehicle for his somewhat provocative brand of comedy.

Thankfully and perhaps miraculously he evaded physical attacks but he drew unwanted and disturbing attention of a different kind.

“I had it for a whole year and there were a few incidents,” he recalls. “A man once told me, “You’re a man after my own heart”. It was a bit sinister. I was trying to reclaim it for comedy. People thought I was an eccentric or mad man; some people certainly gave me a wide berth.

“I was interested in why it was associated with Hitler and not Charlie Chaplin and the many people who had it. It was an experiment to see what would happen and partly about the impact it would have on my life. It was a juvenile thing to do maybe.”

After running the gamut of love, religion, sex and even death in as many shows, Lord of the Dance Settee is not bound by a theme. It is rather a cluster of stories, a sort of nostalgic journey back in time.

The title of the show itself is based on a childhood anecdote. The young Richard misheard a hymn and in his fanciful mind ‘I am the Lord of the dance, said he’ translated into ‘I’m the Lord of the dance settee’.

“This year the show is probably more gentle and less offensive than most shows I’ve done. It’s about trying to recapture the lost past.

“But you never know, someone walked out of the show recently. So you’re never quite sure what’s going to be offensive.”

According to his website the irate spectator then suggested he spin jokes on garlic bread.

As an atheist raised in the bosom of a Christian family, his self-confessed fascination with religion will seep into his routine once again.

“I’m really interested in why I’m not religious. When people believe in something without questioning it, you’ve to ask why you’re not allowed to questions it – usually it’s because it’s ridiculous. It’s something worth discussing and making fun of. I don’t have any of the answers, well I have some, but I don’t know everything.”

A school clown always after the next laugh, Herring went on to study at Oxford where he met his partner in crime Stewart Lee. Together, they decided to give comedy a go “in the real world”. When the BBC cancelled the pair's television show This Morning with Richard not Judy in the 1990s, they parted ways with Herring refocusing his career on stand-up – a format better suited to his temperament and madcap observational and physical stand-up.

“When we finished university, we thought ‘Let’s give it a crack in the real world’. Within five years of coming to London we had a TV series. It was probably a bit too fast. In a way I wish it had taken 10 or 15 years because you get better at what you’re doing. I’m a much better comedian now than I was then. If you can get on a TV show, it helps, people see you on stage. But I see my job as being a comedian. To have a live audience and make people laugh, that’s my job.

“I’ve been injured on stage and I’ve had terrible gigs but I’m equipped to deal with it. I just know it’s going to be all right in the long run.”

Lord of the Dance Settee will be at the Arts Centre on Saturday, May 23 at 8pm. Tickets are £16. To book call 01793 524481 or go to swindontheatres.co.uk.