As a stand-up comedian and panel show host, Jason Manford needs no introduction. His chirpy-chappy routines regularly sell out arenas across the country, while his TV appearances guarantee plenty of appreciative armchair fans. Back in 2012, Manford surprised West End critics with his portrayal of Italian barber Pirelli in a revival of Sweeney Todd. Preparing to take to the stage once again, this time playing Leo Bloom in the UK tour of Mel Brooks’ The Producers, Jason recently took time out from rehearsals to talk to What’s On...

What makes The Producers your 'favourite musical of all time'?
I guess it’s because it’s written by a comedian, so it naturally lends itself to a comic sensibility. There are so many obvious ‘big gags’, but there are also loads of subtle jokes. Every day you’re finding another gag somewhere, and that’s mainly why it really suits me. It’s really funny and, in a way, a little offensive - but I guess in 2015 we’re a bit more blasé about what we find offensive. I imagine at the time of its original release, it would’ve been seen as a lot more offensive.

What does your experience as a stand-up comedian enable you to contribute to the role of Leo Bloom?
I guess you see the world through different eyes. Mel Brooks came up with the original idea back in the 1960s and it was based on two stories. He’d heard about this sloth of a producer, and he’d also heard about these criminals who were laundering money. So he basically put the two ideas together. As a comic, that’s what you do all the time - you hear two or three funny stories and you amalgamate them to create a routine. So I guess in that respect, for me as a comic who’s always writing, it’s great just to be given a really funny script and not have to do anything. It’s not like when you’re given a sitcom script and you’re going through it, trying to make it funnier. 

Do you have a favourite one-liner that you deliver?
I love the blue blanket scene at the beginning. It’s fun, neurotic, hyperactive and really crazy. I’m basically Judy Garland - that’s who Leo Bloom is. He’s brand new to showbusiness and is having his eyes opened very quickly to a lot of things he’s never experienced before. My favourite line of his is “Stop the world, I want to get on”. It’s a really big moment for him, and you could just imagine a young Judy Garland saying it off camera.

Will it be a bit of a jolly, working alongside fellow comedians Ross Noble and Phill Jupitus?
We’re having so much fun at the moment. Both of them are playing the same part at different times in the tour, and already they’re bringing things to it that aren’t in the script - different ideas and different moments that are just really funny. But the whole cast are great fun. It’s really weird coming into a different world, where people sort of know each other a bit and you’re the outsider. Everyone is just really excited to be involved in such a brilliant musical.

You cut your teeth on the stage in Sweeney Todd, for which you received plenty of acclaim. Did that set the bar in terms of the pressure you put on yourself?
What’s interesting is that I’m so used to being on top of my game. I put loads of work into it and I make sure that it’s good - but when you come to do something like this, where somebody else is directing it, somebody else has written it, someone else is producing it, it’s hard to let go of the power that you normally have. Sweeney Todd is at the top of the Premier League of musicals. It’s a great Sondheim show, and to perform alongside Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball was just fantastic, even for the short run that I did. I guess after a taste of that, I was just waiting for another Premier League musical.

Do you ever foresee acting superceding your career as a stand-up comedian?
I don’t think so. I love stand-up - it’s my favourite way of performing because it’s so direct. Everything you say, the audience is on it. You can’t get better than that.

So what made you decide to become a comedian?
I was sixteen or seventeen when I first started and I didn’t really think about it. I just had some funny ideas and an opportunity to do a few gigs, so I did them. There wasn’t a business plan. I think I started in ’98  or ’99. I think I first got paid for a gig in 2004, so there was a good five or six years of going at it and getting into debt. I had other jobs. I was working in an office, on a building site, in a burger restaurant or a toy shop. I had hundreds of jobs and would do them for as long as possible -  basically until they sacked me because I kept heading off to do a gig somewhere!

Were you funny at school? 
I thought I was hilarious, but since school I’ve occasionally bumped into someone in a supermarket and they’ve said, ‘I can’t believe you’re a comedian’. I was a naughty boy at primary school level, although I never brought the police to the door, as my mum always points out with pride. One of the punishments my dad used was to send me to stand in the corner and face the wall. The wall he chose had a bookshelf, and invariably I would pick up a book. I remember going into school and everyone else was reading TIm And Tina Go To The Beach. I was bored out of my brain, as I’d just finished reading Lord Of The Rings. I was quite an advanced reader from an early age, so I was really bored at school. So I became naughty and thought of daft things to do. By the time I reached secondary school, I was always telling daft stories. Mrs Cooper, my English teacher, wasn’t very happy when I used to interrupt her lessons. On one occasion she asked me to share my story with everybody. So I did, and it got a laugh. Mrs Cooper said it was a fun story and set me extra homework for that night to write it out as a story, which I did. That was the first piece of material that I wrote. I guess I was about twelve or thirteen. I took it into her and she said, ‘Well, that’s what really happened, so why don’t you go away and see if you can add to it and make things up around the story, rather than it being purely fact’. She advised me to lose a couple of elements of the story which weren’t as important and to add some things that would be really funny. I probably remember her advice better than she does, but it was a key moment for me. 

What’s your process when writing material, and where do you find your inspiration?
I suppose it’s a bit clichéd but ‘life’, really. I’m surrounded by funny people. The kids are funny, and I’m always hanging around with funny people - even this cast. We’ve been out to dinner a few times with Cory, who plays Max, and he makes me laugh so much. He tells me stories and I’m like, ‘I’m writing that down, I could use that’. I like to try and be open-minded about things. I do find myself in scrapes sometimes and wonder, ‘Why am I here? Why have I done this?’,  but it’s always because there’ll be some fun in it.

What kind of shape do you think the UK comedy scene is in at the moment?
I think there are a lot of brilliant comics at the top level, but there are also loads of brilliant comics coming through from comedy clubs. Me and my brother have a comedy club business and it’s hard. It doesn’t make any money, but it’s kind of putting something back in. It’s what we both wanted to do, and we’ve discovered loads of great comedians.

Do you both scout for new talent, or do you leave that to your brother?
He’s a comic as well, but he’s also the operations manager for the business.

So what career advice would you give to a raw, hungry, up-and-coming comedian?
I’d say, don’t take any of my work! 
I would just say to people, compare yourself to yourself. Don’t think ‘Why has that guy got that’, or ‘Why is Michael McIntyre doing so well?’, or ‘I’m really funny, so why is so-and-so doing that gig, not me?’. You know what, just don’t worry about it. If you’re doing better now than you were six months ago, then you’re doing well.

Can you relate to that? Have you ever compared yourself to other people?
No. From early on, my dad instilled in us, ‘Your horizon becomes your middle distance. Aim far, and one day you’ll get there and you’ll get a new aim’. You’re constantly striving to move forward and make yourself better. There’s actually no point in comparing yourself to anybody else. It’s not healthy. There will always be a Michael McIntyre. There will always be a Peter Kay. There will always be a Richard Branson, a Bill Gates and all of those people. There’s always going to be someone better than you, but that should make you strive more.

What's been your worst experience of being heckled? 
Oh horrible, horrible experiences. Horrendous gigs. There was a guy once where the gig went so badly he was waiting in the car park to ask for his money back.

And did you give it him?
No, but it was really awkward. It was like a really polite mugging.

What's your favourite joke?
I’ve got a routine that I love doing about the woman in Coventry who put a cat in a bin a few years ago. It’s one of those stories that everyone remembers. There’s also a joke I did on my very first Apollo show: ‘The weather in Manchester is like the Muslims in Iraq, its either sunny or Shiite’. What I love about that is, because of my accent and being a northerner, people think, ‘Oh, he’s probably a racist, he’s got that accent’. When you say the words ‘Muslims in Iraq’, you do see half the audience thinking, ‘Hey up, where’s this going?’. In the end, though, it’s just simple international word play, a bit of a silly pun. You hear the audience laughing, but you’re also aware of them breathing a sigh of relief. I like playing that card a little bit.

You mentioned about your business with your brother. Will you be popping into that very well-known comedy club during your time in Brum?
I think so, yes. We’re there on Broad Street on Saturday nights. I‘ve played it a couple of times and I’ve got some other big-name comics coming to play over the next few months. I like to keep those as a bit of a surprise - I guess to reward loyalty. Rather than put them on general sale and get a load of people who’ve never been and will probably never come again, I try to only let people know who’ve already booked tickets. It kind of works.

Tell us about the new BBC drama you’ll be appearing in later this year...
It’s called Ordinary Lives and is written by Danny Brocklehurst, who’s a brilliant writer. He did The Driver for the BBC. He also did Shameless and Clocking Off. It’s very funny but also quite sad. My character is a guy who’s about to get sacked and panics. He lies and says his wife has died, even though she’s at home and fine. I guess he slightly enjoys the lie because he gets a lot of sympathy and attention, which he’s never experienced before. There’s some comedy and some obvious drama in the unravelling of the lie, but it’s just a guy having a midlife crisis and making it worse for himself.  It’s a great cast - Michelle Keegan, Mackenzie Crook, Sally Lindsay, Max Beesley and Jo Joyner - a really solid cast and it’s really well written. The producers are either side of making Happy Valley for the BBC, so they know what they’re doing too. 

Do you consider working on TV a bit of a breeze in comparison to touring?
It’s certainly easier. Obviously there’s not as much travelling, there’s nobody staring at you and nobody’s paid twenty-five-pounds or whatever on the understanding that you make them laugh! That said, the immediacy of stand-up is very attractive. Once you’ve told a joke, you get a laugh, you know it’s gone well. With TV, you film the scene and then wait four months until it’s on the telly to get a reaction.

But it’s always good to have that variety...
I think so. I’d get bored otherwise. With stand-up you only tour once every couple of years, so you need something to do for the rest of the time.

You’ve got Sweeney Todd and The Producers under your belt. Is there another big stage role that you’d love to take on?
I’d love to play Javert in Les Miserables. I don’t know if they’d ever employ a comedian in that role - but like my dad always points out, ‘Frank Spencer did Phantom Of The Opera, so if that can happen, anything can happen’.

The Producers shows at New Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, from Mon 20 to Sat 25 April