According to Jim Davidson I have a lovely name. Hmm. Would this unashamedly retro comedian would be quite so generous if he knew that I’m also a card-carrying feminist sister who grew up choking with laughter at the Young Ones and Ben Elton?

Still. He’s looking forward to returning to Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre as part of his on-going You Must Be Joking tour.

“Last time I went in the bar to have a drink with everybody and have an informal chat so I do like that little place,” he enthuses.

He recognises a lot of the audience and knows some of them by name: “There’s one girl been to see me 400 times or more,” he says. “Her name’s Theresa and she comes from Cardiff. She writes three letters a week and writes on my website every day; she’s a big fan.”

And, should she turn up on Thursday, what will Theresa be hearing about?

“Have a guess.”

It’s not difficult. Jim may be best-known for his Jamaican character Chalkie and the catchphrase ‘nick-nick’. But he was arrested as part of what has been described as the Jimmy Savile inquiry although the allegations made against him are unconnected to Savile’s crimes and relate to complainants who were over the age of 20. At time of writing Jim has not been charged with any offence and his lawyer says he vigorously denies any wrongdoing.

“You can ask me anything but the thing is whether I talk about it,” says Jim. “I don’t wish to seem rude but you must understand that I can’t talk about any of these allegations.”

Then he proceeds to do just that.

“I do talk about them on stage,” he says.

“I’ll refrain from calling it a witch-hunt now, it’s a very easy thing to say when you’re not a witch but now I’m a witch!”

As a comedian of some vintage – he first burst onto our screens in 1976 – he sees the humour in the manner of his arrest.

“It was quite hysterical because I didn’t know what was going on,” he says.

What happened?

“That’s to be told on stage,” he says.

“It’s on record that I got arrested at Heathrow and I just tell the true story of it all and the funny side as well. I speak about what it’s like and how terrifying the whole situation is and funnily enough, the most difficult bit is that it would be easier to live with if you were guilty, because you could make up stories, but when you’ve only got the truth, that’s your only story.”

Has it changed his perception of the world around him?

“It has been worrying because the amount of support you get is sensational and everybody says ‘oh, take no notice because it’ll all go away’ but you can’t help thinking that the police are on a rollercoaster that they can’t get off of.”

None of this is uttered with any bile; he doesn’t slate his accusers, nor does he criticise the police. He doesn’t joke about it, either and his candour is poignant. “It dominates your every neutral moment so when your brain stops, when you stop talking or cooking or when you wake up in the middle of the night, it dominates you,” he says.

“You go from angry to sad to sitting on the computer, trying to find out what you’re doing, where you were, who was there and you know, it’s very, very difficult to live with. It’s the sheer frustration of not knowing what’s next.”

But there will be no shying away. “If I didn’t mention any of this (in the show) it would not be right,” he says.

And Jim never knowingly undermentions.

Race, disabled people, homosexuality are just some of the subjects he’s been lambasted for talking about. He says it’s because it would be wrong to leave people out as a target for his humour.

Jim jokes about disabled people in his front row because: “It’s called including people. If there’s someone there with no legs, do you say ‘Nice hat’?” he demands. “Or do you say; ‘No legs mate, what’s happened there’? Do you ignore these people or do you include them? How is a disabled person going to feel if a comedian takes the rise out of the 12 people on the front row but leaves number 13 alone because he’s in a wheelchair? Is that going to make you feel any better?”

Warming to his theme, Jim explains why he doesn’t believe that Chalkie, his heavily accented black character, was racist.

“The racism thing was never anything to do with Chalkie,” he insists. “Chalkie was a winner, the guy that came out on top in every joke that there was. He was funny, he was loveable and everybody loves that character, black and white.”

Seeing as at least one black comedian has complained it lead to racism against him I’m not sure about this but what is true is that, like a moth to the flame, Jim is fascinated by racism. He’s written two plays about it and has also written another play about Alzheimer’s.

I didn’t have him down as the new Alan Bennett just as I’m amazed he can cook; Jim is a dab hand at making paste to accompany his Thai dishes, recipes for which can be found in his cookbook. He gets rather huffy when I bring up the much-reported paragraph from his autobiography where he admitted to – accidentally he says – blacking his former wife’s eye.

“I don’t know why I do these interviews,” he grumbles. “I don’t know why I bother because people have a perception and they’ll write what they want to write.”

Why does he do it, then? “You’ve got to sell tickets, simple as that. You never put the record straight, never. If I was to cure Aids, stop racism and eradicate mosquitoes I’d still be that racist, homophobic, sexist comic.”

  •  Jim Davidson is at the Tivoli Theatre, Wimborne on Thursday

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