Why comedian Sean Hughes has a taste for the theatrical

“Abu Dhabi and Dubai, there are two other comics on with me. It’ll be nice to hang out with other people, for a bit," the comic predicts.

Sean Hughes is performing as part of The Laughter Factory. Courtesy Sean Hughes

Back in the early 1990s, Sean Hughes came as close as comedians ever get to living the pop-star dream. Loved by trendy music magazines, he played shows to hysterical fans, released splendidly self-indulgent books of poetry and random writings, and moved into television.

Stand-up took a back seat along the way, but the charismatic Irishman has now made an acclaimed return to the stage, albeit with little showbiz glamour behind the scenes.

“Nowadays, I’ll get to a provincial theatre and it’s: ‘Here’s your room,’ and I think: ‘Right, I’ll hang out here for half an hour, bored out of my mind,’” sighs Hughes, whose trip for this week’s Laughter Factory tour has an added incentive. “Abu Dhabi and Dubai – there are two other comics on with me so it will be nice to hang out with other people, for a bit.”

Success is definitely a ­double-edged sword for stand-ups. On one hand, you get to play headline solo shows for your own fans. On the other, life is a lot lonelier than on the communal club circuit. “Being a comic, you get used to it; you can deal with it,” he says. “And if you can’t, then you’re dead.”

A contemporary of the late, great American comic Bill Hicks – he wrote the foreword to Cynthia True's excellent Hicks biography, American Scream – Hughes switched to acting when the teen-screams at his stand-up shows became too disruptive. This included an unlikely spell in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street and some impressively varied stage roles, which continue. He recently starred as the loveable ­stationmaster Mr Perks in a major adaptation of the popular film and book The Railway Children.

Hughes “learnt so many new things that I’ll bring to my next tour” from that ambitious production, which features a moving steam train onstage. But the first few days were daunting.

“I was sharing a dressing room with nine guys,” he says. “So I had to adjust. But now I really miss them. We pretty much spent every day together for three months, that bonding experience of all going through exactly the same thing. Then all of a sudden you say: ‘I’m off now.’”

Dealing with hecklers is very different in family theatre, too. Hughes now operates a zero-­tolerance policy when people are disruptive in his stand-up shows – “it’s an age thing, I just don’t put up with it anymore” – but this required an inventive approach.

“Every show, there would be kids talking during your lines; not in a bad way, but they’re going: ‘Why is this happening?’” he explains. “Then I found a thing: they used to let off smoke from the back, so I’d go up to kids and say: ‘Do you want some smoke to take home?’– then grab some smoke and give it to them. To see the kids’ faces light up … there are lots of things I’ll take from that.”

Hughes's own shows have become more theatrical since he returned to regular stand-up in the early 2010s. His comeback, Life Becomes Noises, set the tone: it was largely about his father's death and he shared the stage with a hospital bed. His long-form shows featured elaborate props, lengthy serious – verging on depressive – segments, and occasional audience walkouts. The comic is now pursuing a more accessible approach and, along with the socialising, is looking forward to honing shorter, sharper sets during these Emirates dates, as he did during his previous visit, in 2011.

“I was just getting back into comedy then and I’ve never been a massive fan of 20-minute routines, but I’ve really been banging them out recently,” he says. “There was a bit of me being a bit too precious when I first did comedy again, but I just know what I’m there for now.”

Not that he is just telling regular jokes. The Laughter Factory sets will feature elements of his next solo show, Mumbo Jumbo, which takes a wry look at modern life's motivations, distractions and addictions, "the daily battle that we all have, between common sense and mumbo jumbo in our heads". It features rock-star anecdotes, poetry and, intriguingly, a three-minute musical about ageing. "The audience loves that bit," he says. "It so annoys me that music can really bring a crowd together, more than comedy."

He’s still a pop star at heart.

• Sean Hughes performs, with Funmbi Omotayo and Dave Fulton, six shows on select evenings, from Thursday until July 30 in Dubai, with a Saturday performance at Abu Dhabi’s Park Rotana. Tickets are Dh140. For more information and to book, visit www.thelaughterfactory.com