PREPARE for a multi-pronged cultural assault from one of our most insightful and thought-provoking comedians.

Rob Newman isn’t just taking his live show around the UK, he has a new book out, and a Radio 4 series which has already begun.

He has spent the year researching brain science, developing electronic props, and doing secret gigs to hone his new live one, The Brain Show, which he believes represents a creative high point for him.

“I am impatient and excited to get this show on the road at long last,” he says. “I’m so relieved that, after so much rehearsal and writing and warm-ups, the show will finally be seen by audiences up and down the land. I'm psyched by the fact that nobody anywhere in the world is doing a show like this right now. But the biggest buzz comes from the fact that in 25 years I have never written comedy as good as this.”

Nobody else doing a show like this? It’s a big claim, but there’s substance to it. The Brain Show is one of the few stand-up shows that dares to scratch beneath the surface of a subject, with almost academic rigour. Previously he has produced shows on evolutionary theory and the history of oil – now he turns his attention to that flaccid 3lb organ in our heads.

"What the show does is take a sceptical stance towards some of the grand claims advanced by neuroscience," says Rob, "so it's exploring everything from the neurobiology of romantic love to the thought-processes of stripy spiders; I talk about Stonehenge, robot co-workers, the right hemisphere of Paul Weller, the evolutionary origins of smiles and laughter … There's also a tricky, insinuating character called Brian Scanlon, and my doomed attempts to impress a neuroscientist called Natasha."

The show promises to be something of a visual feast, not least because Newman will be in possession of a electroencephalograph – a kind of bulbous brain sensor which is worn as a hat and gives accurate readings of his mental states throughout the evening. He’ll also be enlisting the help of a fake bobtail squid and - sometimes - a skull xylophone. All of which make his train journeys around the country rather eventful.

Rob says: "Yes for starters I've got a brace of oversized Hawaiian bobtail squid in my valise, then I also carry a massive ‘brain hat’ around in a djembe bag. Only the African drummers’ bag will hold this thing. I refer to it as 'the brain', and get funny looks when people overhear me say things like: ‘I won’t need my brain in the first half tonight.’ Or ‘They won't let me take my brain on the escalator.'

Robert Newman: The Brain Show is at Ashcroft Arts Centre on Thursday February 25.

For tickets, call 01329 223100 or hampshireculturaltrust.org.uk