Comedian Dom Joly prepares for Cornbury gig

What makes a good prankster? It was a question I mulled over before interviewing the King of Jokers Dom Joly, because it’s this very trait which made him a household name.

Brashness and opportunism, a healthy disregard for personal boundaries, a lack of embarrassment and of course a defiance of social conventions are all pre-requisites for the job.

But when I voice the question, the 47-year-old is not happy. “I hate the word prankster. In fact I have a real issue with it. Pranks are apple pie beds and water bombs on the top of doors, not what I do. I prefer to call it hidden cameras, even though everyone thinks they can do the same thing by pinching someone’s ass and filming it,” he says crossly.

It’s good to see that the old Dragon School pupil is still firing on all cylinders, making for a more interesting chat. Because he is, if nothing else, always candid.

He hated his time at The Dragon, saying he lived a “schizophrenic existence” describing miserable term times in the quintessential Oxford prep school and blissful holidays in war-torn Beirut where his family lived.

He found it hard to conform even as a child, hating rules, defying authority, characteristics he now attributes to his success. “I never fitted in, in either world, I was English in Beirut, and at school this strange boy who lived in a war zone. I was always an outsider, always an observer, floating, the middle class rebel who secretly wanted to be accepted. And I still prefer being the unknown little idiot kicking away on the outside. But then I sound like Russell Brand and I don’t like him either,” he laughs.

It was Dom’s hair-brained idea for Trigger Happy TV, a hidden camera show that went on to be sold to over 70 countries worldwide, which launched him onto an unsuspecting public, a TV show that hovers somewhere between Jeremy Beadle and Jackass, where his surreal practical jokes him an overnight success.

“Trigger Happy worked because people were expecting Candid Camera and they didn’t know how to react. I liked knowing that the TV audience would be sitting at home mulling it over and wondering what they have just seen.

“Because whatever you do in England, the majority of people will ignore you and hope you won’t stop and ask them anything – that terror in being singled out, the humiliation of making a faux pas, or being late for the theatre. John Cleese focused on that too.”

So what would he do in that situation? “Oh I’d behave in exactly the same way. If I saw a man dressed as a snake, slithering across a zebra crossing, I’d wonder what the hell he was doing.

“But that’s why I do what I do, because I’m not comfortable as myself. I don’t come on stage and say ‘Hello I’m Dom Joly.’ I’m not a stand-up.”

And yet last time we spoke in 2009 Dom was about to embark on a massive stand-up tour. “That was the last time I’ll ever do that,” he groans. “What was I thinking? In fact Oxford was the worst gig of the whole tour,” he says, suddenly remembering. “This guy sat right in the front row and was really annoying so I kicked him out. I didn’t think Oxford would be like that, but by the time I’d lost it, even the hecklers looked frightened.”

So why do stand-up then? “For just that reason. To see if I could. Everyone always says to me ‘you’re a comedian, tell me a joke’. But I will never do it again. That’s always been my problem, never saying no.”

Dom Joly now travels and writes books, which is why you’ll be able to catch him at both Cornbury and Wilderness festivals in Oxfordshire this summer.

• All at sea: Dom Joly is a fanatical traveller and adventurer

Tourism was his salvation after he knocked Trigger Happy on the head, getting away to the Congo, skiing in Iran, visiting Chernobyl, travelling around Cambodia, making a career of visiting dangerous locations: “Living in Beirut really helped because although it was a war zone you could still enjoy yourself and it was very beautiful. I wanted to go to places where you couldn’t get a Starbucks, and my book Dark Tourist is about that. I like to walk on the wild side and am addicted to travelling.

His next planned trip is a 30-day trek across the Lebanon mountains from the Syrian border to Israel, so how does that work with a wife and family (he lives in the Cotswolds near Cheltenham)?

“We go on long road trips together in the school holidays. We drove to Istanbul last year and called it the divorce tour,” he laughs, “and then I do my other stuff on top of that. There are still so many places I want to go.”

And while many of his travels end up in his books, Here Comes the Clown is a bit different, detailing Dom’s meteoric rise to fame and the predictable struggle that followed: “I find writing very therapeutic and it helps me analyse what went wrong, as well as making people laugh.

“I don’t regret anything but writing this made me realise how lucky I was to stumble across something like Trigger Happy. And then I killed the golden goose after two series because I couldn’t cope with the pressure. I should have filmed one every three years and done vanity projects in between,” he shrugs.

Joly says he “hates festivals normally. All those middle-class people pretending to be hippies,” but loves Cornbury and Wilderness because “they are so posh they don’t pretend to be anything else”.

And with that he’s off, that strange, defiant, intangible, contradictory mix of a man, no doubt up to cause more mischief and mayhem.

Dom Joly will be appearing at Cornbury Festival (July 10-12 cornburyfestival.com) and Wilderness (August 7-9 wildernessfestival.com)