IT’S more than a decade and a half since The Pub Landlord first appeared in front of an audience. Back in 1994 his bull-headed dismissal of anything un-British felt quite edgy – dangerous even – in the bear pit atmosphere of a comedy club and although he now plays to tens of thousands of people in the nation’s arenas, he retains his ability to unsettle.

The reason he can still confront our prejudices and knee jerk reactions to the world about us is that he is kept on a very tight rein by his creator, Al Murray.

“There’s absolutely no chance The Pub Landlord will become a spokesman for a generation, or anything like that. It won’t happen. I can offer you a cast-iron guarantee of that,” says Al, forcefully rejecting the notion there’s any danger some may fall in line behind the Landlord as some kind of figurehead.

“You go right back to Warren Mitchell as Alf Garnett and the language they used in shows like Til Death Us Do Part was hair-raising to us today, but then was in common use. It’s mind-boggling, but they were sending the whole thing up which was incredibly edgy.

“What I do with The Pub Landlord is say to people you don’t have to take this kind of person seriously, you should laugh at them because what they say is so laughable. The Pub Landlord is a caricature, it would be awful if everybody was like him – imagine a world like that, terrible.”

But you must have met more than your share of Pub Landlords…?

“Oh yes, hundreds. Well, actually, it’s always ‘this bloke in the pub up the road’, or ‘my mate back home’, it’s never actually the person I meet. Apparently, there’s a bloke in a pub in Hammersmith who reckons I’ve stolen his life, but I’ve never met him, not yet anyway.”

Any idea what the Landlord would make of Al Murray were they to meet?

“He’d have me out of there in a flash – not welcome in my gaff. I think that would be a very short meeting.”

Although they may not see eye to eye, Al has much to thank The Pub Landlord for – not least the three books and multiple DVDs he’s responsible for – and, when pushed, will admit to a certain warmth.

“Well, he’s a send up, obviously. There may be some warmth in the way I do it, some affection, but he’s put there for people to laugh at, pure and simple, not to encourage anyone to believe it.

“I’ve done hours and hours of material as The Pub Landlord and there are hours more to do. As long as the world keeps turning he’ll have a view on things. As long as I can keep writing jokes for him he’ll be there.

“Having said that, after every tour I end up thinking: ‘If I have to do that again I’ll kill myself’!

“What I can’t get in the business of doing though is repeating old material. On the last tour I did the show 130 times and it’s dead to me by the time it’s over. Plus, people will know it better than me from having attached it over and over again so I won’t be doing any greatest hits comedy.”

The current tour, Barrel of Fun, started life – as many of Al’s tours have done – on stage at Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre, one of his favourite warm-up venues.

“That’s a very special little theatre, I love it. I’ve built up a very special relationship with the Tivoli going right back to when that was the size of venue I played on tour. They’re lovely, lovely people there and have been so helpful to me when I’m trying out material for a show so I keep coming back. Plus, I love that it’s all volunteers and that kind of stuff.

“The thing is though that, in essence, the shows don’t change that much. We finished the last one at the O2 Arena, but I wrote it in a studio theatre that held 50 or 60 people, whereas a front row at the O2 holds 50 or 60 people. The show is just engaging with people and talking to them about stuff and that doesn’t change.”

Al is in no doubt where The Pub Landlord ends and Al Murray begins – one’s a mask that allows the other to show off.

“None of these things are problems for me. What I do have a problem with is the idea that comedians should always be truthful. Why? What’s the point of that? How boring would that be? Performers who say they are cripplingly shy are probably in the wrong job. This is dressing up and showing off, that’s all. You’re on a stage with lights pointing at you, it’s not real life.

“The word ‘persona’ comes from the Greek word for mask and this is a persona I adopt in order to be able to talk about the things I want to talk about and I get to go a lot further than if it was me stood up there.”

• Al Murray’s Barrel of Fun comes to the BIC on Sunday, November 21.