COMEDY is full of characters.

One of the characters in the current comedy world is Count Arthur Strong.

He is not a real person, he is the creation of actor Steve Delaney, who portrays him live, on the radio and recently on television.

On Wikipedia it states: “Count Arthur Strong, an elderly, pompous, out-of-work actor from Doncaster with delusions that he is a show-business legend.

The character has been described as “a mixture of physical and mental clumsiness, mirthful malapropisms and Tourettic tics, whose pride forbids him from ever conceding fallibility, even as his world crashes around him”.

The man behind the mask or in his case the hat and glasses, Steve Delaney said: “Everything I have done with Arthur has been intuitive.

"I like things to develop in a natural way, some would say it was being from the North (Leeds) which mean I am being lazy.

"I just like to the character grow organically an doing things at my own pace and appreciating it in the right context.”

One of the comedy characters from the past who looks like Count Arthur is 1960s comedian Harry Worth.

I asked Steve if was on purpose on just a quirky similarity.

He said: “Many people have said this but I think Arthur looks like my dad and there is some of me in Arthur Harry was much more compassionate than Arthur but maybe it is just the hat and the glasses.”

For many viewers they can after a while think the character is real and not fictional and Steve believes there are people who think Arthur is real.

One of the main reasons for Steve’s realism with Arthur is there is no back story to Arthur, what we see is happening now.

His words are written, but there is a freshness as Steve does not really rehearse but everything which looks like it is falling apart is falling apart in a controlled way.

Steve believes by doing it this way, there are no restrictions on what you can do with the characters.

Count Arthur Strong is Alive and Unplugged.’at the Brewhouse on May 18.

Tickets cost £23.50. Buy online at thebrewhouse.net or call the box office on 01823 283244.