Frank Skinner enjoys return to comedy

Frank Skinner's given up trying to be serious and gone back to his first love - comedy. Susan Griffin meets the football-loving funnyman

Frank Skinner's return to our television screens with topical comedy show Frank Skinner's Opinionated was met with a fanfare last year - and rightly so.

Despite popping up on the odd programme here and there, it had been five years since he'd presented a regular TV slot and the fact it was immediately recommissioned for a further two series proves how much he'd been missed.

"I'd done lots of other people's things and there's something lovely about that because you can turn up, be funny and then go home," says 54-year-old Skinner in his soft, slow-paced West Midlands accent.

When we meet to talk about the new series, a blue-suited Skinner is already tucking into a plate of spaghetti. He apologises profusely, adding: "If I don't eat now, I never will."

Despite his hiatus from TV, he says he didn't feel any pressure about returning.

"You have to deliver, obviously. And more people are talking about it because you're on telly but generally, it's very exciting making a television series," he says. "That might sound unsurprising news but I think a lot of people forget that."

Perhaps he'd forgotten that too, when his TV contracts ended in 2005, but with Opinionated he could focus on everything he enjoys doing, namely stand-up, audience interaction and having a bit of banter with fellow comedians.

"The idea of Opinionated is like pub conversation," says Skinner. "I throw in some facts and figures but I like the fact people talk completely erroneously about a topic.

"The original pilot we did was a bit more political and then about two minutes in I thought, 'Oh no, I just want to do jokes', so I've learnt my lesson," he says with a grin.

As with the first series, Skinner, who lives in London with his partner Cathy Mason, will tour the length and breadth of the country to film the shows.

"We're a sort of a roadshow - and it feels like a noble thing to do," he says, laughing quietly.

"Not everyone thinks of London as the centre of the world and on Opinionated it isn't, because we're very much 'out there'."

Born Christopher Collins in West Bromwich (he reportedly changed his name to that of a man in his dad's pub dominoes team), he left school with no qualifications and worked in a metal factory before enrolling in night school.

It was during a trip to the Edinburgh Festival that he experienced his "road to Damascus moment" and at the age of 30 spent £400 of his £435 savings on booking a stand-up venue.

Recalling one of his early shows, he says: "I was so frightened of the audience - they were horrible and I just lost it. I gave up any pretence of liking them, started shouting and they were peeing themselves laughing. I got an encore, which I'd never had before.

"I learnt to be myself up there, and cast caution to the wind. People find that quite exciting."

In 1991, he won the Perrier Award (other nominees included Jack Dee, Lily Savage and Eddie Izzard) and hasn't looked back since.

By the end of the 1990, he was one of TV's biggest stars thanks to Fantasy Football League, which he wrote and presented with good mate David Baddiel, and The Frank Skinner Show, widely credited for setting the tone for the comedic chat show.

For someone who's been accused of being crude and misogynistic in the past (he's denied this and said: "My stand-up's about sex rather than being sexist and I'm the fall guy in every routine,") he comes across as utterly charming in person - and is in fact a devout Catholic.

On Thursday night Frank attended the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible at Clarence House in London, where he spoke to Prince Charles about his faith.

There's a sincerity and gentleness in his manner, which made him a brilliant interviewer and his interviews with Myleene Klass and Tara Palmer Tomkinson remain TV talking points to this day.

He's done little interviewing since, bar a one-off chat with Russell Brand, and can't see himself returning to "that formal chat show thing".

"I don't think everyone is as interesting, open and articulate as Russell Brand," he says. But then he catches himself out when asked if he'd have been tempted to fill the seat left by Jonathan Ross.

"I don't know," he says after a pause. "The easiest answer is no, but if they'd offered it to me, my ego probably would have taken it on."

It was following Brand's 'Sachsgate' saga that Skinner was asked to host a Panorama special in 2009, exploring taste and decency on television. But he's not interested in doing any more social commentary.

"No, I'm interested in doing less," he says. "I went through a period of flexing my intellectual muscles. But I look back on it now and it feels like I was saying, 'Oh, look how clever I am' - I think that's a bit tragic."

When Baddiel And Skinner Unplanned ended in 2005, Frank began work on a novel called Thunderman And Geoff Phillips, about a superhero duo.

"I'd been doing three TV series a year and I thought I'd become a recluse, write this novel and re-emerge in a year's time to people saying, 'What? He's a Booker nominee and he used to be a comedian?' That's how I saw it," Skinner laughs - only he gave up after 60,000 words.

"I'd like to do small clubs again - like I used to. I was very, very happy," Frank says. "Now I want to do things simply for pleasure."

* Frank Skinner's Opinionated begins on BBC Two on Friday, March 25. Free tickets to the recordings can be booked through www.tvrecordings.com