COMIC poet John Hegley has a promise for theatre-goers in Chipping Norton.

On being told that the town was commonly known by many as Chippy, he pledged: "I'm going to be lippy and dippy in Chippy."

The man with the glasses is visiting the town's theatre on Friday, June 21, as part of his latest tour of performance poetry, called John's Journals.

It is the first time he's been to the town but said: "I have heard good things about the theatre there. I'm looking forward to it because when you play a new place there's always something there and I'm staying in a hotel in the town, so that always adds to the pleasure."

His wry humour hasn't always been the stock-in-trade of his stage show as he actually started out as singer and musician. His first professional booking was playing Elizabethan music for a children's theatre show but from there he soon found himself performing comedy at London's Comedy Store and other clubs.

His singing background helped lend itself to poetry. He recalls thinking "I'm going to try this song without the music and see how it goes."

His earthy style might seem somewhat out of kilter with more literary poets but he is a great admirer of Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes for their "weight of words."

He says that one of his aims when he works with children, in particular, is to make them see words as real objects and not just "scribbling."

That love of words comes out in the comedy of John's Journal, based on his weighty hand-tooled Moroccan leather-bound journals. They draw on his Cub Scout diary, a 10-year-old's perspective before and after glasses and, more recently, his travels to Nice, Greece, Australia, Colombia, Reading and Stenhousemuir.

Rather than making fun of other places, as some comics do, John takes a wry look at them "I was brought up in Luton and I honour Luton," he said. "If you honour Luton you can't put the downer on anywhere else."

The evening also contains John's night as an MC of a poetry presentation by some Luton 13-year-olds who have got a problem with his glasses; a chance meeting with an official of the Building Works' Union who suggests he writes a poem about the increased incidence of injuries in the trade; a visit to Thailand and an encounter with a Buddhist Monk; his meeting with a woman who will not share her sweets; and weighing up cabbages at the greengrocer's.

A regular sell-out at The Edinburgh Festival, John has performed at the Montreal Comedy Festival, and the USA Comedy Festival in Aspen, where he went down well, despite his obvious English eccentricity.

He has also appeared with Ulrika Jonsson and Anita Dobson in the Pajama Game and regularly on BBC Radio 4's Hearing with Hegley.

John is widely known as one of the country's most innovative comic poets with seven best-selling volumes of poetry to his name, "DOG" being the latest.

Tickets cost £10.50 (concessions £9) from the box office on 01608 642350.