Ben Elton is one of Britain's modern comedy icons - and he's coming to Preston.

Ben doesn't know why he seems to get up some people's noses.

"I think it's because I never go away and that's an irritant. What is surprising, and slightly disappointing, is that I never had a honeymoon.

"The press were deeply conservative in the '80s, massively behind Mrs Thatcher, and I was really quite a target right from the start.

"So I never had that nice period that, say, Little Britain are going through at the moment."

Meeting Ben Elton is pretty nerve-racking stuff. I went in expecting a smug, arrogant, know-it-all, full of political jibes but found a friendly, refreshingly normal middle-aged guy, passionate about his work, clearly crazy about his wife and kids, who hasn't let success go to his head.

Over the years Elton has been accused of a number of "crimes" arrogance, lecturing his audience and, most notably, of selling out, perhaps after taking jobs that appeared to go against the infamous left-wing rants in his early stand-up material.

But with a phenomenally successful career as a stand-up comic, TV writer, novelist, playwright and Hollywood player, much of the backlash is probably sour grapes.

Although he insists he doesn't care what people think about him and doesn't read any of his press, I suspect deep down it irks him that he's not celebrated more.

"I don't get it. You think, well, I've made my contribution to the sum of human happiness," he fumed.

"Apparently there was a documentary the other day that said I killed the sitcom. I wrote The Young Ones, Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line, Blessed, Filthy Rich and Catflap. How could I have killed the sitcom?

"I think I've always worked honestly, I've never ever done a job for the money. Maybe that irritates people.

"But I've never had anything horrid from the public in 25 years. I use buses and tubes, I go to the pub, my kids go to state school and I meet them at the gates like every other mum or dad.

"The public are not as enamoured with celebrity as the media would like them to be."

The reason for our chat, in a small room at Blakeys coffee bar in King George's Hall, is that Elton's first stand-up tour in eight years is calling at Blackburn - and also Preston.

He says he wasn't worried about getting back on stage after so long.

"I wasn't at all nervous and that's not being complacent. It's because I don't put something before the public if I don't believe in it and that's why I've always been able to sleep at night, even if my stuff's turned out to be c**p or disappointing. At least I know I wasn't trying to please anyone but myself."

So will there be political ranting and a shiny suit? Or does he have new sources of material now he's older and wiser?

"I can't talk about being a drunken, sex-starved student anymore, which is what I talked about when was young. That is life."

Up until he was 40, Elton and his wife saxophonist Sophie Gare lived the high life. Then kids arrived, and turned their lives upside down.

"We used to have our tea in restaurants, me and my wife, until we had kids," he said.

"Now we never do. Now we eat oven chips and cold fish fingers because that's what you do when you have kids.

"Soph and I are often in bed by 9pm. We're exhausted the whole b***dy time."

But he maintains that as he has become more wealthy, his values haven't changed.

"I still feel exactly the same as I always did politically," he said. "I think high earners should pay more tax.

"Fortunately, I've had a lucky life so I'm aware of that good fortune and that's why I believe in the values of the community by putting back in."

He denies he is a workaholic, despite producing a phenomenal amount of work in his career.

"Obviously I understand that I do a lot of work. I've written 10 novels and that would probably be quite a lot if it was all I'd done and it absolutely has been a sort of sideline for me. I just work quite fast.

"I think a lot of artists are very lazy. They say I can only work when I go to my gite in France.' "Well, the postman would love to say Well, I can only deliver to a gite in France' but they're not allowed to because they'd lose their job.

"I'm endlessly excited by thoughts, ideas, what's going on around me and I always feel the need to commit my thoughts to paper and they tend to come out comedically, then narratively.

It's just a great privilege to be able to make a living doing it."

And with that, Elton is ushered out like a whirlwind to his next engagement.

Ben Elton is at the Charter Theatre in Preston on Sunday, February 12.