Brian Sewell is hilarious. Laugh-out-loud funny, passionate, eloquent and informative. But that's because he's talking about art. Catch him on a bad day and you might get the more infamous Brian - the camp, haughty, condescending side that so often gets him in trouble.

But as the 77-year-old puts it himself, in that wonderfully delicate voice, famously described by Paul Merton as being posher than the Queen's: "I really don't give a hoot what anyone thinks. I'm not a buddy boy and I don't do what I'm told. I'm a maverick. But it does mean sometimes that I'm crying in the wilderness."

What Brian Sewell does care about is provincial art funding, which is why he's coming to Chipping Norton's Theatre on Saturday night for what he calls "a good old rant" entitled The Confessions of an Art Critic. It's described as 'a masterly summing up of the history of art and its direction in the UK in recent years, laced with a scorching critique of the work of the Arts Council' .

It's been a massive hit, which proves just how well regarded Brian is in the sticks, despite living and working in London. So does his popularity in the provinces surprise him?

"Yes it does actually," he says, "because everything I have had anything to do with (referring to his TV documentaries The Naked Pilgrim and The Grand Tour) has been," he pauses and laughs, "an unhappy compromise between what I want to do and what they wanted to do.

"People who make TV are petrified of informing the audience about anything. They are so patronising that they they think we are all idiots who are incapable of concentrating for more than five seconds so they make sure they do not burden us with facts and do not break the mould. What twaddle."

Which is exactly what Brian does best - break the mould. He has never been afraid of taking on the establishment, speaking the truth with an often brutal honesty and refusing to bow down to trends or political correctness, which is why he's been the Evening Standard's art critic for 25 years.

So has this attitude ever got him into trouble?

"Well, about 15 years ago, a group got together and told my editor that I should be sacked because I was a misogynist, a homophobe and generally loathsome (at which point we both burst out laughing because he sounds like a naughty schoolboy), which was very foolish because even if he agreed, he didn't want to be told how to do his job.

"But you do need to have a very thick skin in this job and there are going to be times when you are an outsider and you just have to grin and bear it, that's all you can do.

"As long as you always tell the truth, or the truth as you see it, despite the awkward moments when you bump into people that you know despise you (again, more contagious laughter).

"But there are fewer people now who hate me as much as they used to."

Brian was brought up by his mother after his father died when she was pregnant, and didn't go to school until he was 10.

"My education has been so totally unbalanced, but they wanted me to catch up on maths, and, of course, I never did. I'm hopeless with numbers and adding things up," he admits.

So how did he get on at school? "I survived. I don't remember it as being awful, although I'm sure they thought 'what have we got here?'"

His eccentric education hasn't done him any harm though, and got him into the Courtauld Institute to do an art history degree.

From there he went to Christie's and then the Evening Standard nabbed him.

So what does he say to people who are scared of art?

"Never be afraid of your own judgement. Art isn't a precise science, and you are as entitled to your opinions as anyone else.

"I rather liked that Yorkshire man who said 'I know what I like and I don't like that'. So my advice is to wander around a gallery until you find a picture that reaches out to you.

"It doesn't have to be a good picture, or the most famous in the gallery, but when you've found one that you respond to, ask what it is about it that excites you, what can you see, do you like the way it handles the subject matter - and go from there."

It's definitely the art he likes rather than the socialising, as Brian never goes to parties, hates eating out and tends to keep himself to himself.

"I hate spending £100 on one rather unsatisfactory meal which would keep the whole household going for two weeks. But then I hate wasting money.

"And anyway, I'm not really a mixer or socially at ease. I get bored by total strangers and small talk, which is why I never go to parties because I always want people to go away and leave me alone," he says in those crisp consonants.

So does he live on canapés at exhibitions then?

"No, I'm allergic to asparagus," he says bursting out laughing, "so if you want me to stop breathing, give me asparagus."

Tickets are £11 (concessions £9), plus £1 fee if booked online.

Chipping Norton Theatre, Spring Street, Chipping Norton Box office: 01608 642350