IT IS in the job description that comedians should deliver happiness. They should at least allow us to exercise our laughter muscles, leading to an increased sense of wellbeing.

Today, more than perhaps any other time in recent history, comedians have a choice in how they do that. Do they plunder the political landscape or turn their backs on the global cast of villains to talk about childhood sweets.

Marcus Brigstocke believes there is a balance to be struck in reflecting the absurd “is all this really happening?” nature of global events and leaving audiences battered and bloodied by the sheer awfulness of it all. That third way is his current live show Why the Long Face?, coming to Perth Concert Hall as part of the Perth Festival of the Arts.

While it doesn’t swerve the grim realities we’re facing, its main concentration is on happiness and gratitude. The hour-long version played at last year’s Fringe, but since it was written in 2015 it has been shifting and developing to reflect these extraordinary times.

“There is a lot of material out there just now, that is true, but I think people are looking for a break from relentless news,” he says. “Why the Long Face? is essentially about happiness, but it’s about entitlement and gratitude so I can take the subject matter anywhere.

“Being a straight, white, middle-class, privately educated, university educated, London-dwelling man, I have no excuse to be unhappy about anything – ever. Even though I was born with a long face.”

For all the reasons in his self-description, however, avoiding current events would be working somewhat against nature. “It does look at topical and political material but more to point out that while it’s important to have views on all these things and to know where your values are, it’s also incredibly important to find ways to be happy.”

The two-hour show starts off with what Brigstocke describes as “clearing the decks” with the topical stuff. “It’s always more interesting in Scotland, particularly as a posh Englishman. People’s perception of what goes on is informed differently. That’s primarily through different newspapers and media of course, but it’s always fun to me.”

There will be no Edinburgh Fringe show this year as he spends summer with his children. He is something of an Edinburgh stalwart, however, and in 2013 put his admittedly impressive chin up and carried on, despite injuring his leg badly the beginning of the run. Reminding him of a day sitting together in the backstage area of the Underbelly when I brought him a few coffees to save additional painful hobbling, he says, “I do remember that. You were an angel.” He was grateful but terribly English in his “mustn’t grumble” musings, saying that Nicholas Parsons had also hurt his leg and he was 90.

“You know that leg still isn’t completely better. I suppose it was partly my own fault. After that I went on that Channel 4 programme The Jump and snapped a cruciate ligament. A year after that I had another injury and then I was back on crutches for ages. But yes – I was so grateful for any help during that Fringe.”

Being thankful for the small things is another element of Why the Long Face? Despite his claims that he has nothing to complain about, in reality we know that economic privilege won’t always make us happy. Many people who have much less are more content.

He has written a sitcom for Radio 4 that explores elements of that. “It’s a modern take on The Good Life I suppose. Not self-sufficiency as such, but like Tom and Barbara Good the family are trying to live an ethical life while everyone else around them isn’t. They make good ethical choices about where they shop. They recycle, upcycle, reuse. I suppose it says that we’re all consumers, but there are questions about why we need to keep consuming. Why do we need to constantly update our phones for example?

“We also know that young people have too much of a choice. Their constant sense of connectivity through social media and mobile devices also means the real world struggles to compete. Even I find that at times.”

Without heading towards the mindfulness yurt, he adds, “The show looks at the stuff that makes you unhappy but you can’t do anything about – and how we have to let go of it because we can’t change it.

“There’s also proper personal stuff – a bit about a bad place I went to after a painful break up. I don’t dwell on it but real things happen. These are difficult to deal with, but ultimately the show does come back to optimism and gratitude.”

Brigstocke hasn’t performed the show in its entirety for a while, but finds that it has a life of its own now, growing and contracting. “There were things I was were keen to talk about when it began that have become less interesting, but there’s always something to replace it.”

He has already started writing two shows for Edinburgh in 2018. One is a Radio 4 play to be performed during the Fringe called The Red, where a sober alcoholic inherits a vast amount of wine.

In the stand-up show, he’ll be playing the Devil. It is inspired by the current climate of accusatory politics, where, as he says “we point fingers and say ‘You’re evil… You’re a Nazi… You’re a snowflake’.

"Satan is the most evil incarnation that mankind has been able to dream up, so occupying his position outside of normality allows me to look at good deeds with bad intentions, and bad deeds with good intentions.”

So, as much as any comedian tries to avoid topical material at the moment are the personal and political so intertwined that it’s an impossibility?

“Well, in as much as we all make choices with selective blinkers on at the consequences of what we’re doing, and convince ourselves that we’re somehow serving the greater good,” he says.

“Ian Duncan Smith would be a good example of that as a man trying to rectify his failing to make a mark as a political leader. I can’t stand the man, but I do think he gets out of bed in the morning and says to himself – how can I help get these people who are stuck in a cycle of benefit dependency? How can I help them to find them what I’ve found – the esteem that comes from work? I genuinely think that’s what he thinks. But he can only get there by putting the blinkers on and saying I’m really going to hurt loads of them. Hurt them and hope the hurt will motivate them to be the person I think they can be.”

Why the Long Face? has elements of that, which overlap in terms of how Brigstocke views the world, but without the horns, tail and trident.

“Like most stand-ups I’m a clown on stage, looking around saying ‘Does any of this really make sense?’ That’s what we’re for in the end.”

Marcus Brigstocke - Why the Long Face? is at Perth Concert Hall on Monday, May 22. Perth Festival of the Arts begins on Monday.