COMIC ‘outsider’ Geoff Norcott is bringing his Traditionalism show to Otley Courthouse next month.

Here, the Conservative-voting comedian shares a few thoughts on everything from Brexit to Otley.

Wharfedale & Aireborough Observer (WO): What’s your show about?

Geoff Norcott (GN): Politics and social attitudes are changing at a dizzying rate. I’m like a lot of people in the middle: I want to hold modern views but the labels we use are changing so fast it’s almost impossible to keep up.

If you go out of the country for a month you come back and something else is now deemed offensive.

I got called a ‘dinosaur’ for the first time recently. Well just like dinosaurs I hear men like me are soon to be extinct, I might as well have a laugh about it before the meteor strikes.

WO: Are you traditional?

GN: I guess my relationship operates on a very gender typical basis. I think a lot of people’s still do, yet the chattering classes are engaged in fervent debate about gender neutrality.

I think male and female characteristics are slightly more innate than that. Having a baby brings issues like this into focus.

Right from the start my son was visibly more at ease with my wife around. And why not? She could feed him with her body, I couldn’t even do it with a spoon.

WO: What’s the most radical thing you’ve done?

GN: Being a Conservative and Leave voter in the world of stand-up is reasonably out there. Those views are pretty common in wider society but somehow, in stand-up, I’m seen as ‘exotic’. I’m the comedy version of that white tiger in Vegas.

WO: Why are there so few comics on the right?

Historically. the alternative scene was a reaction to the stand-up of the day. Even though that was ages ago some lefties cling onto this view that any right-wing comedian must be unpleasant (so unlike the left to get their big ideas from the Seventies).

If anything, me not turning out to be a totally evil git seems to annoy them more.

WO: Have you got any ties to / memories of / thoughts on Otley?

GN: ‘Otley’ sounds like a name for a much-loved family pet. I’ve never been here before, but I’ve heard the crowd are up for it. I don’t know if that’s because Otley is lovely and they’re happy or because it’s terrible and they need a laugh.

WO: Brexit?

GN: Well, I voted Leave and I’d like to say that yes, I did realise it would be this complicated and I absolutely thought through all the ramifications of a hard border in Northern Ireland and...look, I don’t regret my vote, but it’s tricky.

I might not be able to make jokes in support of Brexit but I can certainly crack a few at the expense of certain Remainers.

You know the ones who developed this lifelong love of the EU the moment the vote went the other way.

WO: Do you ever get adverse reactions from audiences?

GN: Sometimes people get triggered. Corbynistas cannot take jokes at Jeremy’s expense. I was at a gig in Bristol and remarked that Corbyn looks like a pensioner at a service station who thinks he’s lost his coach party.

One lady got up and said: ‘Stop being mean about Jeremy!’ Which was fine, but the previous comic to me had been making jokes about Theresa May’s appearance and she’d laughed throughout. I made that point and she stormed out, ironically no-platforming herself.

*Geoff Norcott’s show at the Courthouse takes place at 8pm on Saturday, November 3 and tickets cost £13 - for more details visit www.otleycourthouse.org.uk or call (01943) 467466.