Milton Jones, the king of the one-liner and Mock the Week regular, is coming to The Grand this Sunday! The great news is there are still some tickets.  His new tour, The Temple of Daft, sees Milton, who can cram in up to 250 gags a gig, string his wisecracks into a broader story, one that sees him loosely take on the mantle of namesake Indiana (plus hat).

Your new tour is called The Temple of Daft. Why?
previous tours have been lots of jokes in different forms, but basically lots of jokes. This is more of a story, more like one of my radio shows. It loosely, and I say loosely, follows a kind of adventure-archaeology type story. It started off with me noticing that I had the same surname as Indiana Jones, and it has all transpired from there.

Do you wear a hat? Do you have a whip?
I do wear a hat at one point, not for the whole thing, ‘cause then people would never see my hair.

You talk about using a narrative style, and you say this is a bit of a departure. What brought that on?
Two things. When people see you on telly, they want to come and see the same sort of thing when they see a live show, but obviously not the same jokes. Moving to a narrative was a way of keeping the same style. It begins to mine other areas of jokes as well, in terms of, if you can do a scene where you’re talking between two people – even though I’m the only person there – that’s a different sort of writing than just one-liner after one-liner.

Has being known as the king of the one-liner ever been an encumbrance?
Yeah I mean, in a way, I’ve got to be grateful… people want to put you in a box, so that originally it’s people who are booking gigs; they want to know what type of comedian you are to fit on a bill. And I think that’s true of television as well, to some extent. On Mock the Week, I sit in the one-liner chair, and if it’s not me, it’s Stewart Francis or Gary Delaney – you know, it’s the ‘odd’ bloke, so that has gone in my favour. I’m sort of grateful for where it’s got me, but if I go for an audition for another show, albeit a sitcom or something, it’s quite often as the crazy neighbour. You think well, I’m glad I’ve got this audition, but it’d be nice not to have to do that role forever. So, I suppose this show is me trying to move things on.

What’s your hair care secret? How do I get the Milton Jones look?
Well, I did use to use wax, but actually under TV lights that’s not so good – it wilts, because it’s hot, and that’s not good. So now I use something called Backcomb Dust, which is actually far drier and keeps your hair higher for longer.

Words by Halifax Courier.

Milton Jones and The Temple of Daft

Info and tickets available here