Serious side to Joe Pasquale

One of the great treats in arts journalism is a regular chat with the great Joe Pasquale, a man so friendly, funny and self-confessedly bonkers the interview becomes one long giggle.

Actors tend to parade their great sensitivity, telling you how extraordinary they find the play, the part, the writer, the rest of the cast, the theatre, anything and everyone - and by extension themselves.

Down-to-earth Joe is straight into his stride with what he loves to call “a load of old cack”, brilliantly funny nonsense that will lift any day.

But as he approaches his 50th birthday (which will probably be celebrated with a kebab in Great Yarmouth, he says) just a couple of weeks after his latest Worthing date (Pavilion Theatre, Sunday, August 7, 7.45pm), Joe is happy to reveal a rather more serious side to his preoccupations.

He’s just completed the foundation year for a BSc degree in geo-science; his longer-term aim is to present a TV series aimed at making geology fun and accessible.

“I always wanted to be a geologist at school, but I got run over and missed a year and missed the options. But I have always been interested in fossils and crystals. I want to make it so that people don’t think that it is all dry and dusty.”

It will be fun, but relevant. As Joe says, a few years ago, no one would have known what a tsunami was. Now it is part of all our vocabularies. A few years ago, earthquakes seemed rare occurrences. Now they seem to come think and fast.

“The world is changing. I would like to do a show that would make all that geology more accessible and make it fun. I wouldn’t make it ‘pull my finger and do a fart gag’ type funny, but I would make it all much more chummy and friendly.”

In the meantime, though, he’s delighted to be heading back to Worthing with a show called… you’ve guessed it… Pull My Finger.