Deadpan, grumpy, sardonic: The three most overused expressions to describe funnyman Jack Dee.

But there's more to this 42-year-old father of four than the downbeat bloke from the beer adverts who, back in the Nineties, infiltrated the nation's subconscious as the face of John Smith's bitter the big sell being that each can contained a special widget which re-carbonated the beer.

The last few years have been busy ones for Dee, who at only 5ft 3in tall still cuts a dashing figure in his sharp, hand-made suits. In 2001, much to his own bemusement and at times obvious frustration, he endured two weeks incarcerated with the likes of a highly-strung Vanessa Feltz and bouncy Anthea Turner, to emerge as the popular winner of the first Celebrity Big Brother.

Since his BB exposure, Jack's acting career has taken off with starring television roles in The Deputy in which he put in a memorable performance as a sycophantic government minister and Tunnel Of Love, a romantic comedy-drama set among nefarious fairground attractions.

This year also sees the release of two feature films with the inimitable comedian appearing in cameo roles: Short Order, by Irish director Anthony Byrne, and The Last Drop, a Second World War movie from Spivs director Colin Teague.

But despite the lure and excitement that film offers, it seems the self-deprecating Mr Dee is never happier than complaining on stage to a live audience.

"Stand-up is something I'll always want to be doing," says the London-born comic. "Sometimes I'll leave it alone for a year or so but it will always be the bedrock of what I'm about.

Nothing beats the thrill of live performance. When the ideas are flowing and you're improvising, it's like being able to fly."

Revelling in his King Of The Grump title, Dee bases most of his material on what others would view as being the mundane and humdrum aspects of life.

"I'm paid to do nothing other than concentrate on the pointless stuff in life," he says. "I have to bring up the things that have absolutely no bearing on anything and turn them into routines.

"I don't apologise for my show being about nothing. I'd be embarrassed if I tried to address the world's problems in a didactic way. A comedian who comes on with all the answers is just not funny, Ladies and gentlemen, what we should be doing is this'. And your point is?' Stand-ups are much funnier when they present themselves as part of the problem."

Three years is a long time to spend collecting anecdotes and it has resulted in some new targets for Jack's Victor Meldrew-type lambasts that include the somewhat unfashionable subject of life on the road under the Big Top.

"I'm trying to introduce the idea of the English State Circus," he muses. "It would be held in a massive Burberry big top and the clown would come on being abusive, smelling of cigarettes with a betting-shop pencil behind his ear. And now from Manchester, the Fly-Tippers!'

"I hope the Government picks up on it. It's crying out to be done. I feel circus workers must be having an awful lot of sex why ever else would you do that job?

There must be some hidden benefit. You learn to juggle just so you can live in an eight-foot-long caravan with the Kosovan hoopla twins.

"You can't stay that fit just by doing 20 minutes' trapeze a day. They're up to something."

Starts 8pm. Tickets cost £24.50/£22.50. Call 01273 709709. Extra date now added to tour: June 27, Congress Theatre, Eastbourne. Call 01323 415508.