What have Alan Bennett’s plays Enjoy and The History Boys got in common with The Rocky Horror Show? Not a lot at first sight, but all three are, or have recently been, touring the country in productions directed by the same person — Chris Luscombe.

Now he is working on a fourth show, a touring version of the Monty Python musical Spamalot — summed up thus by the Daily Telegraph critic during its West End run: “There has never been a sillier musical than this, or one more calculated to appeal to the British sense of humour.”

The Rocky Horror Show tours to Oxford from May 31 to June 5, and Spamalot from October 25 to 30. Both shows are at the New Theatre. The History Boys will be at the Oxford Playhouse from June 14 to 19.

“I like it when I’m offered things that I’ve never thought about doing before, like Rocky Horror and Spamalot,” Chris told me. “They are two shows that I wouldn’t in a million years have thought of directing. If someone had said to me, ‘would you like to do a musical, which one would you like to direct?’, I wouldn’t have come up with either of those titles, because I’m not really into rock music.

“My all-time favourites would be Guys and Dolls, West Side Story, My Fair Lady and Carousel. So it’s good when someone says, ‘would you like to do Rocky Horror?’, when it’s never crossed my radar. I’d never seen the show or the movie. It meant that I had to delve into a whole new world, and that got me going.”

Chris went into directing after 18 years as an actor.

“I did a show for the RSC called The Shakespeare Review — I was in it, and also put it together, so I ended up directing it as well, almost by accident. That gave me a taste for directing, I just loved it. I tend to do comic things, but I’m very keen on doing things like The History Boys, which have got a lot of serious stuff in them as well. I’m finding Spamalot interesting because it really is just there to entertain, that’s the whole point of it.”

Chris Luscombe has found himself working on revivals of several shows originally directed by other people.

Mike Nichols was responsible for Spamalot in the West End, for instance, while Rocky Horror is indelibly associated with Richard O’Brien.

Does he, I wondered, slink into previous productions and take a look, or start with a clean slate?

“I must push to do a new play as well, otherwise people might think I’m scared of that, and I’m not,” Chris laughed.

“With revivals, I try really hard to completely ignore the fact that the show has ever been done before. I try to look at the script, and respond to that. In my head they’re not really revivals: I’m conscious that a show may have been done very successfully in the past, but you can’t go into rehearsal thinking about that.”

But Rocky Horror has a cult following, with audiences who dress up, and take exotic props along to the theatre (water pistols, Kit Kats, rice, and toast are now banned).

Surely the show’s army of fans could be extremely unreceptive to any changes?

“Rocky Horror and Spamalot are quite similar in that respect, they’re both cults. I’m doing both shows with that thought in mind: people are going to feel very strongly about every decision you make.

“This production of Rocky Horror has been going for about four years now, and people say things like, ‘we couldn’t believe that you put Columbia in a black jacket, why isn’t she in red?’.

“Some of that can be a bit wearing, because you think, ‘we’re here to do a new production, and be original’. But, equally, you value their enthusiasm and excitement about seeing the show again. You need to look people in the eye, and give them a good reason for changes.”

As we talked, my mind kept jumping back to a hugely comic, and sharply observed moment in the Luscombe-directed production of Alan Bennett’s Enjoy, which toured to the Playhouse in 2008.

Connie dotes on her daughter Linda, telling every visitor: “She’s in Sweden at present.” Linda suddenly turns up, wearing a very short skirt and possessed of a very sharp tongue. “Not Sweden, SWINDON,” she snaps.

Chris Luscombe remembered the line well.

“It always brought the house down,” he chuckled.

“It was a sure-fire laugh, particularly in Bath and Oxford, because they’re fairly near to Swindon. Anywhere in that sort of vicinity went particularly well.”