IN Batman Begins, Christian Bale, who stars as Bruce Wayne and his alter ego Batman, states in one part of the film to Rachel Dawes (played by Katie Holmes), “It’s not who I am underneath but what I do that defines me.”

The part of the sentence linking what he does defining him is true of comedian Jenny Eclair.

It is not often you are going to get Christian Bale, Batman and Jenny Eclair in the same sentence.

But Jenny Eclair came up with her own Batman moment when I asked her this question: How do you view being a comedian? Is it hard work? A job? Just an act? Or a way of defining who you are as a person?

She replied saying: “Comedy is who I am and what I do.”

It has, as you will discover, been her life since she was four-yearsold, when she knew for the first time she had ‘funny bones’.

The term ‘funny bones’ relates to the fact some people are funnier than others, and many comics feel they have ‘funny bones’ as they can tell what is funny and what is not and what will work in comedy and what will fail.

Jenny’s funny bone moment, as she said, came: “I found out I was when I was four-years-old and put on my father’s beret (he was in the army) and walked up and down making funny faces.

“My dad was always very funny.

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He was funny to the bone. When I went to other children’s homes I was surprised when their dads were not as funny as mine.

“My mum was sneakily very funny.”

Her ‘funny bones’ must have worked as in 1995, she became the first female solo winner of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s Perrier Comedy Award.

Since then, she has appeared in a number of projects, one of them being when she helped develop and appear in the show Grumpy Old Women, as well as a variety of successful spin-offs.

One such spin-off has been to be part of The Grumpy Old Women stage show, which has been out and about for 10 years.

Recalling why she became a stand up comedian, Jenny said: “I became a comedian as I couldn’t be an actress.

“Finding this out was a slow and humiliating process, as I had been to drama school.

“I had difficulty remembering my lines and then I wanted to add to the lines I had and just thought I could do better and wanted to make people laugh.

“Once I knew I could not act, I wanted the immediacy of an audience, so I got up and did stand-up.

“I found it difficult to break through as at times there were no laughs. But when you get the laughs you start to breathe.

“As a comedian I am very committed to the script.

"I think comedy has to be scripted, as an audience does not want to pay money to see me faffing about on stage.

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"I saw a clip of myself on television, Celebrity Masterchef I think, and I thought I was hilarious and I don’t know why no television executive wasn’t booking me for my own show.

“Writing comedy can be difficult as you never know where the ideas are going to come from.

“I am thrilled when it happens and I can work on the joke, either changing a word or the running order.

“The longest I have taken over anything are my novels.

“I wrote one recently but I had to give up on it as it was going nowhere and I cannot force it. It is too big to force.

“It is very painful to drop a project.

“But if it is not good enough it is not going anywhere.

“I am very cynical and too judgemental. I can spot b*****it at 10 paces.

“I think I have been resilient and have put up with the discomfort of the late nights and having to throw myself on stage. I am a true believer in Dr Footlights and that adrenaline will get you through things.

“You have to thrown yourself into them.

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“On this, I am very ‘old school’ and when it comes to punctuality and getting ready for a show.

“I have to be in the theatre one and a half hours before I go on to prepare.

“There are others who can turn up 20 minutes before they are due to go on stage and go on and do it, I cannot.

“I believe in the punchline and I believe in the joke.

“I have always been funny as I have funny bones.”

The Grumpy Old Women will have a superhero theme with Menopause Woman, HRT Girl and Hatchet Face.

I quoted Christian Bale as Batman at the start of this interview and now it pays dividends.

Hope it was worth the wait.

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Jenny will be in Somerset in April with Dillie Keane and Lizzie Roper for Grump Old Women to the rescue. They will be appearing at the Octagon in Yeovil at 7.30pm on April 4 and 5.

Tickets for Grump Old Women to the Rescue...cost £26.

Buy online at octagon-theatre.co.uk or by calling the box office on 01935 422884.