ONE of my favourite comedians of all time is singing the theme tune of the Black Beauty TV show to me down the phone.

I suddenly realise this is not going to be your standard day at the office.

Born in London to Iranian parents, comic Omid Djalili is recounting an anecdote about one of the times he performed in Dorset, at Bournemouth, and it didn’t really go to plan.

He said: “I had an idea I’d take a toy horse and take it out of my pocket and started singing the Black Beauty theme tune.”

At this point he starts singing ‘Dah-da, dad ah-da dad dada dah-da.’ Before adding: “I thought it would get a laugh and there wasn’t. I put the horse back in my pocket and went, ‘Tough crowd.’ That got a huge laugh.”

“I think they like their surreal humour,” he laughs. “I think I might bring the horse back.”

Readers will know Omid from TV, stand-up, film, stage – his CV is extensive.

From award-winning stand-up with the No Agenda tour and Omid Djalili Live, parts in Gladiator, The Mummy, The Infidel, Sex and the City 2, to his stage work as Fagin in Oliver! or as Red in the Shawshank Redemption.

He has toured across the world and worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood, from Oliver Reed and Ridley Scott to Whoopi Goldberg.

But despite all the success, he seems very down-to-earth and likes to laugh at himself when we chat.

He will be back in the area on his Iranalamadingdong tour, firstly dropping into Yeovil’s Octagon Theatre on October 12, the Bridport’s Electric Palace on October 14, before returning to Dorset in 2015 with a performance at Weymouth Pavilion on March 17.

The new show is, he says, the ‘most enjoyable’ he has ever done.

There will be a question and answer session at the end of each show.

The audience will have the chance to send in their questions and Omid will read them out and answer them.

“It’s live, it’s exciting,” he says, as well as being different every night.

Although he ‘hit the ground running’, Omid admits he did forget a few things on the opening night.

He said that inside a comedian’s mind they were always thinking, ‘Damn I missed that bit, that’s why they didn’t laugh at that!’ He said: “It’s like a web, a matrix in your head. That’s the skill of a comedian – you have to recreate that painting every night.”

You get the feeling speaking to him, that this is someone who doesn’t take anything for granted and likes to push himself to do even more.

Before the interview I read the background to the new tour where Omid jokes that: “A lot of men in their forties try to do things to prove themselves.

“For me it was a choice of going on tour, learning to ride a unicycle or understanding Judaism.”

I ask him if he still feels that with all his success he needs to prove himself.

“Yes, completely,” he replies.

In his forties he said he realised that ‘laughter was not an end in itself’.

He adds: “We need the laughter because it’s a means to an end.

“It’s a means to understanding issues through laughter.”

Does he feel a responsibility to educate through his humour?

“I think unconsciously yes, because I talk about things that make sense to me.”

He jokes that the old saying was that a comedian says things that people are thinking, but no-one would dare say. But what he was actually saying, nobody was thinking.

He has also just released his book ‘Hopeful’, based on an obscure Winston Churchill quote.

He said: “Basically it says ‘success is failure after failure with no loss of enthusiasm’.”

He added it was about ‘embracing mistakes’.

So after all his success what would be Omid Djalili’s dream project? It’s probably not what you would think.

He would like to do a film where he plays Al Pacino’s illegitimate son from a fat woman he met in the 60s and then Omid’s character would come back into his life and they would have to reconnect.

Sad to say, Omid has yet to pitch this to Mr Pacino.

And in his own words, ‘if his career wasn’t varied enough’ he has two rather disparate projects on the go.

Firstly as executive producer of a documentary entitled ‘We Are Many’, about the anti-war demonstrations in February 2003 against the war in Iraq and, following that international backlash, how 10 years later a decision was taken not to go into Syria.

He said: “Governments are listening to the people.”

The second will see Omid go round trying different hot chilli dishes as part of a chilli challenge. As part of that, he tried the Dorset naga chilli. The verdict?

“It’s awful,” he said.

The Godfather 2 is the film he wished he had had a part in, while Bill Bailey is his favourite comic and he loves Prog Rock.

But after all the success, the travel and the work, what advice would he give to his younger self? “Relax.”

He laughs: “Just relax and everything will be all right. That’s what I wish I’d told my younger self.”

You can follow Omid’s antics on Twitter @Omid9