Andy Richardson: I saw the dragon costume and went ahead – well head only!

Work has never been about a salary for this strangely-wired man. It’s about having fun and being creative. And so when I carry my Ermenegildo Zegna briefcase – try saying that after a sherry – to the car after a long, satisfying day at Weekend Towers, I usually head off to do something equally creative rather than, you know, have a life.

That might be creating a book for a Michelin-starred chef, making sure, of course, that I say ‘yes, yes, yes’ when the chef invites me to eat whatever he’s just cooked. On other evenings, I’ll usually find myself on the stage of a provincial theatre asking questions of somebody interesting for the delectation of an audience.

One week it might be a rock’n’roller who has burned his way through mountains of Class As and slept with half of Rutland, the next it might be a pillar of society who has rubbed shoulders with Royals and Prime Ministers. I like to think of myself as a Low Grade Parkinson, a feller who listens well and does his homework before asking perspicacious questions; though they are always delivered in a Black Country lilt rather than plummy Yorkshire tones.

My part-time past-time has given me remarkable insight into the theatres and arts centres of the UK. And I also know the location of every M&S Simply Food and Waitrose Local in England, Scotland and Wales.

I’ve come to realise that live entertainment is anything but glamorous and that back stage areas are only marginally more salubrious than the oil-stained workshop of a down-at-heel MOT centre. Amid the autographs from Phill Jupitus and Jack Dee and the posters of tribute bands and actors, dressing rooms are shabbiness writ large.

Most serve as a repository for dodgy furniture and faded dreams. Strewn with battered, tea-stained armchairs you’re more likely to find a packet of stale crisps shoved down the back than a crisp £10 note. The wings of stages are frequently strange.

Most often, they are littered with glossy, disembodied kisses at lip height; I guess women (and some men) pucker up and plant a smacker on the backdrop before they hit the stage.

The worst dressing room I ever found was at a town hall venue in mid-Wales. It had been the scene of an AC/DC tribute act the night before – and sausage rolls and cans of beer had clearly formed their rider. The cleaner must have had an off day, so when a fella off the telly and I arrived to do our show, we found ourselves knee deep in flaky pastry, finely minced sausage and dregs of beer. Nice.

Props are a regular find, too. There’ll be plates of plastic food, funny costumes and hats – why so many hats – in most dressing rooms, presumably left over by the local am-dram group. One rock star – a man who sold more than 100 million records – was so taken with a policeman’s helmet that he found that he incorporated it into his act. You can insert your own pun here. The audience, incidentally, loved his PC impersonation.

The find of all-time, however, was a green dragon suit in a dressing room somewhere near the South Coast. Like some sort of grassy-coloured Gruffalo suit, replete with purple prickles all over its back, it sat in the corner of a dressing room waiting for an idiot to wear it. I am that idiot.

And so, alone in the sanctity of a dressing room, before addressing an intelligent, well-read audience about, well, you know, stuff about running the country, I did what everyone ought to do at least once in their life: dressed up as a dragon. And then I stood in front of the mirror, pointed my camera at the reflective glass and pressed the button. InstaDragon.

I sent the photograph to She Who Must Be Obeyed; a sort of 21st century look-what-I-did-at-school-today thing. I’d expected a shrug of the shoulders and a you’re-so-stupid response. Instead, she loved it. “Are there shoes to go with it?” she asked. They were. Size 18s. Mahooosive.

And in that moment, I realised why we will spend the rest of our lives together. One green dragon suit and two absolute fruitcakes. A marriage made in wyvern. Do you, Lady, take this Orville to be your lawfully married muppet. Squawk.

I refrained from slipping into the whole costume. Had the sound man arrived and asked me to do a line check while dressed as Gruff-alo-dragon, I’d have felt reasonably foolish. Instead, I folded it up in the corner and set up the show, placing the size 18 dragon shoes neatly before the dragon tail.

I showed the former Home Secretary what I’d been up to when he arrived. He laughed. What a cool bloke. We need more people like him running the country. And then I put it away and pretended nothing had happened. It’s my little secret. And I’m never, ever going to tell a soul.