Comedian Rich Hall is coming to the Swaledale Festival in Yorkshire - if he can find it

“I’ve done several dates there, and I remember playing the Skipton Livestock Mart a few years back…but Swaledale, well, yes, I had to Google it to find out where it was, and then to find out something more about it. I instinctively knew that I wouldn’t be playing something the size of the O2 Arena, that’s for sure!”

Hold on. He remembers the Skipton Livestock Mart? Why, exactly? Another laugh. “The smell, the lingering aroma of ammonia and disinfectant. And a great audience, as well. Tennant’s sound way more up-market, but hey, if the place is surrounded by hundreds of sheep, I’m not going to be complaining, not at all. I like animals, we have plenty of them here in Montana.”

Does he have them on his ranch? “Ranch sounds far too grand, thousands of acres, it’s quite a modest plot, really, where I come to write and to compose music. I don’t have cattle myself, my neighbour does, a huge herd, and I’m very happy to let him graze them on my land, keeps the grass nice and short. I’m not so happy when they sometimes knock down the fences, but, well, there we are.

“I could never ever be a rancher, no way. You have to be up at five o’clock, out with the herd, and you don’t get back home until 10pm at the earliest. That’s not for me. It’s a hard, hard life.”

Rich Hall first made his name in his native America as a writer for comedy shows, as a stand-up comedian, and the creator of an alter-ego, a fictional character called Otis Lee Crenshaw.

Hall admits that he and Crenshaw were similar in concept to Barry Humphries and his inventions of Dame Edna and Les Patterson, and it was in 2000 that he brought Crenshaw to the UK, and scooped the prestigious Perrier Award at that year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Hall and Otis often appeared on the same bill together, and there was a packed-out performance at York’s Theatre Royal about ten years back that he still recalls with pleasure. Crenshaw even wrote a best-selling tongue in cheek book, called I Blame Society.

So where is he these days? “Shelved”, says Hall, “probably either in retirement in Hawaii, or on death row in a jail somewhere. I don’t think that you’ll be seeing him again soon. He’s retired, let’s put it that way. A bit like Al Murray has retired his pub landlord”.

After that Fringe success, Hall was picked up by TV, and was – still is – a frequent guest on shows like QI, Have I Got News for You and Never Mind the Buzzcocks. In fact, he’s in the UK so much that he also has an apartment in London, which he shares with Karen, his wife of 20 years, and their two children.

Which does he prefer, the open acres of Montana, or the buzz of the capital?

“Both, in equal measure. The one for the peace, the solitude, and the fact that I can go upstairs and write and stare out of the window at virtually nothing, then go back down again, and make a cup of coffee. And the other for the vibe and the fact that I have so many friends over here.

"In fact, I’ll be 70 in a few months’ time, and Karen and I both thought that it would be cool to rent a comedy club for the evening, and to invite all my favourite comics to come along, and to get up on stage and say what they like about me. Anything. I don’t care. It’ll be far funnier and more enjoyable than just standing around at a normal party. Bring it on!”

He's honest enough to admit that, while he’s proud of being able to sell-out enormous venues, it’s the smaller ones that he really enjoys.

“There the audiences have come to see you, they’ve really made the effort. I’d far rather be on stage at a half-empty comedy club, with a fun audience, than I would at some huge arena, or the Apollo, where there’s that vast screen behind you, and the people at the rear of the hall have to watch that, to see what you’re doing.

"I hate those huge screens. In the smaller places, people are there to be entertained, and that’s what I like to do. And it’s also fun for me to do my research, as well. I’ll spend some time about Swaledale before I arrive, the history, the characters, so that I can weave them into the evening.

"I can promise you that. Familiarity works. No two places are the same, when it comes to comedy.

" Yorkshire isn’t Glasgow, Swaledale isn’t Sheffield. If I just did the same act everywhere I went, I’d be crazy. I have to be prepared.”

He always requests that he is given rehearsal space and time before a show – probably a couple of hours – so that he and his guitar accompanist can “feel” the space.

“I’ll give you an example. I was performing in Barbados not so long ago, to a largely ex-pat English audience, so I had to make connection, not only with that island, but with the state of things in the UK. It worked! I can write anywhere. In the corner of a bar, or a pub. Tell me some good pubs in Swaledale, and you’ll find me in the corner, making notes.”

He was born in Virginia, and grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina – there is Cherokee blood in his veins. Thinking back, he was not one of those comics who started way back as the class clown, at school.

“That wasn’t me at all. I was the class clown’s manager. I’d put him up for stuff. I’d say to him ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if you did this – or that – and pulled a prank such as…..?’ and he’d go off and do it, and get the laughs. And the blame as well. I’d walk away scot-free, with the sense of satisfaction that I wasn’t the one to face the music”.

He learned his skills as a street comedian and a guitar player while he was still at Western Carolina University, and he broke into television in the USA in 1980, writing for the David Letterman Show. He was so good at what he did, that he was given an Emmy Award in the following year.

Who were the entertainers that he admired when he was growing up?

“Jack Benny. He was the unsurpassed and unequalled King of timing and stand-up comedy. Another brilliant stand-up was Allen King, and I used to watch all the variety shows back then, the ones which featured comedians, comics on the shows like Ed Sullivan. Some made me laugh out loud. Then there was Don Rickles, who was the insult King, funny, but never mean.

"Steve Martin was another, and Jerry Seinfeld was inspirational. Not only a fine comic, but a man with a strong work ethic. You have to learn that you get it all down, work up a routine, and then you cut it, cut it, cut it ruthlessly, until what you have is the material that makes people laugh – and, hopefully, think, as well.”

Hall doesn’t want to offer any thoughts on our own election but he’s gloomy about the up-coming one in the US.

“Joe Biden has been a great President, yes, he’s old, but he’s still got it. In Trump, well, we may yet elect a President who doesn’t sit in the White House, but behind bars. I’m expecting the worst, but whatever happens, it’s going to be a comic’s gold-mine.”

Rich Hall: Shot from Cannons, Tennants Garden Rooms, Leyburn. Thursday, May 30, 7.30pm. www.swalefest.org​​​​​​​​​​​​​​