Al Murray at St James Theatre

You must not swear or slag off the royal family, but anything else goes - even hassling the French.

That was the brief for comedian Al Murray - aka the Pub Landlord - before his two Royal Variety performances.

When he ribbed the French during his routine he saw the Queen's famous white gloves clapping demurely in the royal box. Afterwards, apparently, she told him: "That was most amusing."

"You aren't meant to refer to the fact that she's there, but it's a classic elephant in the room situation. I mean she's there, everyone knows, and everyone is watching to see how she's reacting. It's a funny old gig."

Murray performs as the Pub Landlord at Auckland's St James Theatre from tonight.

It's no coincidence that the comedian, whose show taps into the British male psyche, is performing during the Lions tour. He's not stupid. But he is wary of attempting to tap into the mindset of the classic Kiwi bloke during his shows.

"What's so fascinating is I have an image of the Kiwis via the All Blacks phenomenon, via how seriously rugby is taken here in a way it simply isn't in the UK. And yet, it's a country with a female Prime Minister, with a quite interesting anti-nuclear, socialist thing, which doesn't necessarily square with your butch male.

"I have a fairly clear view of what I think of Australians [he's married to one], but I don't think I have such a clear picture of the Kiwis.

"I'm fascinated with national identity and what people think of themselves. The Aussies have got themselves into an interesting place. What they think about themselves is so heavily dependent on sports to bump them along when they're not feeling good. That's fascinating, that they're possibly not actually that self-confident and that is a really interesting thing to go on stage and take the piss out of.

"You seem much more happy in your skins in New Zealand. It seems to be very agreeable here."

When he gets to a new place he tries to watch a bit of TV, read the newspaper and hang out in a few pubs to familiarise himself with the locals and get to grips with current issues.

Although his first visit to a New Zealand pub did not leave a great impression.

"We ran into some really grumpy bar staff yesterday. They were grumpy for no apparent reason. They weren't too busy yet the whole begrudgingly pouring us a pint thing seemed really weird."

And to really ram the bad service message home: not naming names, but a certain cafe in a plush central Auckland hotel had failed to serve us our coffees by the time we wrapped up this 20-minute interview.

When you visit the Pub Landlord's fine establishment, you might get an ear-bashing and a few rude remarks, but you will get served. Especially if you're a male, sitting in the front row and drinking wine.

Murray will take the wine off you - accompanied by a few friendly words about not being a nancy - and pour you a pint from the on stage bar. That's worth the price of a little humiliation, surely?

As the Pub Landlord he has been labelled a satirist and a commentator on both British society and the common British male.

"But that was never how I thought about it. It's that blarney thing, shooting the breeze, and that's the thing with the pub landlord, you come in the pub on a Tuesday afternoon, there's no one in there, and he's going to talk to you until you leave.

"And that might be 10 minutes, it might be three hours ...

"Everyone's been in a pub, and everyone's met an idiot, and everyone's had a beer and talked about the state of the world, so there's some fairly immediate things for people to identify with.

"It's a bottomless pit, I can talk about anything that anyone would talk about in a pub, so - especially when you're having a drink or two - it's probably about the meaning of life, religion, what we need to do to sort this country out, blah, blah, blah.

"I don't know what people in New Zealand think needs to be done to sort the country out, probably fix the traffic or something. The whole thing about the pub landlord is that he's about peoples' gut reactions to things."

As you'd expect he does pick on - sorry, "involve" - the audience in the show and he'll pick up on anything from the fact you're not wearing socks to how chubby you are.

Also, as you'd expect, he has had someone taking it all too seriously.

"I have had one guy try to take a swing at me - he was really drunk and he didn't really understand what was going on and he couldn't really understand why I was talking to him because he was too far gone.

"It's not supposed to be taken seriously. It's a comedy show. And I've had some people come up and say, 'What are you saying? The way you talk about the French is outrageous.' But generally, people get it."

Who: British comedian Al Murray
What: The Pub Landlord
Where & When: St James Theatre, July 4, 6, 7, 8