Stewart Lee is starting to think about his next tour – and it could feature Morris Dancers. 

He said that he enjoyed the physical exertion of donning a heavy wolf suit every night in his current tour, and wanted to expand on it next time around.

‘For the next tour, I want to have something that's hard to do and demanding,’ he said. ‘And I'll be 60 when I'm doing it. doing it, which makes it all the funnier, of course, the older you are, the more tragic it is to see you trying to do physical things. 

‘So the next one, which will be 2028, will be all about national identity.  I'm going to try and get a Morris dancing team from each town to do a finale with me, for which I've worked out a really complicated and demanding piece of traditional dance, which I'll do with them.

‘I'm already thinking about that one. I wish I could do it now, that show, because I've got loads of ideas about flags, national identity, racist football managers… I want to get that show in before the next election’ – which must be held before August 15, 2029.

Fifteen years ago, Lee hosted a documentary on Morris dancing for Radio 2 called It's Got Bells On.

The comedian revealed his plans on the Always Be Comedy podcast, saying that wearing a costume for the second half of  Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf show, is ‘the only exercise apart from cycling and long-distance walks that I've ever managed to enjoy doing in my life, it’s an hour of cardio workout every night in a really hot costume. I’ve lost about one and a half, two stone doing it and I feel really great afterwards.’

While in the suit,  the stand-up parodies arena-filling Netflix comedians parroting right-wing talking points and complaining about being cancelled. 

He said the conceit made the show one of his favourites. Talking about his early years on the circuit he said: ‘Honestly that period 1989 to 1995 before I started doing telly was the happiest I've been up until now actually, where the endorphin-inducing effects of dressing as a werewolf every night has made me as happy as I was when I was 21 years old.’

And he told podcast hosts James Gill and Tim Lewis that when it comes to return the Man-Wulf character at the end of the tour ‘I’ll really miss him’.

He recalled working on a show with Harry Hill when ventriloquist Keith Harris was a guest. ‘He absolutely hated [his duck puppet] Orville,’ Lee said. ‘ I remember being in the green room with him and he really resented the duck. He resented being chained to it almost and he viewed it as a person that he disliked – so it's a bit like that brilliant episode of Inside No 9  about the double act except the thing he hated was his own hand. I mean that's heartbreaking.’

In the podcast Lee also praised Hill for bringing high-level surrealism to mass audience, saying: ‘I think people spend a lot of time in music and comedy, nostalgically going on about how great the past was. But there are people that are with us now that are the all-time greats that you can still see, and he's one of them. ‘

Lee added: ‘Young people know something that we didn't grow up knowing, that they are doomed, that climate change and AI are going to absolutely destroy the way our societies work as we know it… Insane, mad, inventive comedy like what that Harry does takes away the pain for a bit.

‘The idea of going into someone's crazy world for a fixed period of time, you don't quite get that in the same way any more, with the sorts of shows that we used to have when we were growing up. So I think it was brilliant to see it again, and people really responded to that.’

Hill has just started a video podcast, which featured Lee as the first guest, and he commented: ‘I never thought it would happen, but YouTube does seem to be creating a platform to allow these things to happen.’

The notoriously technophobic Lee does have plans to dip his toe into new media, including a two-part podcast being recorded at the Machynlleth comedy festival in May with Birmingham punk legend Robert Lloyd of The Prefects, Nightingales and King Rocker repute. 

Lee said that premise of the show was inspired by the fact the musician doesn’t like to analyse his work. ‘ I thought it'd be funny to get him to tell these old jokes, which he tells really well, and then for me to drill down and ask him about the meaning and the context of the setup and where he imagines they are set socially and what they say about women or race from the time they were written or the tragedy of them, because he will not be interested in that at all.

‘W’ll see what happens but I don't want to add to the landfill of podcasts without  having something good to say.’

Lee said he might also have someone create a channel for his old material, saying: ‘There are clips of mine that have got millions of hits on social media that I see no revenue from in any way.

‘I don't understand how it works but I'll do something probably... I think it's really worked for Jack Dee and others.’

But don’t expect him to become a content creator, as he explained:  ‘I saw an article in the New York Times by a young American comedian and she was saying she got to the stage where she couldn't write material because she was spending all her time developing content and I've talked to young British comics who feel the same. I think it's tyrannical what's happened ,

'I think if you if you end up just trying to develop little bits of content to hold people's attention, you miss the bigger picture of the thing you're driving towards. But what do I know? I’m nearly 60.’

Lee also expressed his fears that Reform-led councils around the UK might pull funding from local theatres if they didn’t like the liberal programming, in the same way Donald Trump has trashed the Kennedy Centre in the Washington DC.

• The Always Be Comedy Podcast is available now.

» Stewart Lee​ tour dates