COMEDIAN Rob Brydon has made a name for himself playing hapless Keith in the cult TV show, Marion And Geoff.

In the series of 10-minute monologues, taxi driver Keith sat in his car chatting incessantly about his divorce from wife Marion and his life since the split. The series was poignant, funny and a hit with viewers.

Now Rob, 37, is back for another series of extended 30-minute programmes, with Keith having moved to a new job as a chauffeur.

"Hugo (Blick, director and long-term friend of Brydon's) and I were both wondering whether it would work as half an hour, but one of the things that made me decide me to do it was watching an old episode. When it finished I felt a bit hard done by. It didn't feel like a programme."

And so we have more of Keith giving his naive take on his rather sad but eventful life. He landed his latest job after a visit to the dentist where he noticed an ad in a magazine, The Lady.

Things aren't going so well in Keith's personal life. His relationship with his ex-wife and children, the "little smashers", has deteriorated after an "incident" and he's now only allowed to visit them under supervision.

"It has a big effect on his life and over the course of the series he's trying to get unsupervised access," explains Rob. "What happened was innocent but it turned into something quite horrific.

"We leave a lot of things open in the series for the viewer to make up their own mind about. I like the way, like in life, that it's open to interpretation. Hopefully that makes it a rewarding thing to watch. You have to invest a bit of time in it but you get a lot out of it."

Despite Keith's nerdiness, naivety and general ineptitude at life, Rob says there are elements of him in the character. But, of course, they are greatly exaggerated.

"Hugo and I write it 50-50, so there's elements of me, elements of him and things we've observed.

Foibles

"What we do is spot foibles and quirks in ourselves that we think would be useful for a character. We take it and stretch it and exaggerate it until it does the job that's needed in the script. I'm not afraid to use my own failings."

But Rob is more vague about whether he uses his experiences with his own family in the show. He separated from his wife two years ago, and now has a girlfriend. Unlike Keith, his relationship with his ex-wife is "amicable and friendly" and he sees his three children regularly.

Initially, much of Rob's career was spent working as a radio and television presenter who merely harboured dreams of performing the sort of material he does now.

Then he was "discovered" by Manchester's Steve Coogan, who liked his idea for Marion And Geoff and got the green light by the BBC by backing it with his production company, Baby Cow. The two comedians have been working together ever since.

"I originally saw Steve as something of a mentor but now he's a colleague and a friend We've done an episode of Alan Partridge, two dramas and the film, 24 Hour Party People.

"That's four projects now and we're keen to do more. We're two performers who are very much on the same wavelength and we're looking for one big thing to do together."

Rob embarks on a nationwide tour as Keith throughout March and April and is also following the likes of Catherine Zeta Jones and Anthony Hopkins, who both hail from his hometown of Port Talbot, into the world of film.

"I've got a thing going with BBC Films to write something for me to act in. But I'd love to find myself acting in a film with Al Pacino or Anthony Hopkins, just to see what it felt like working opposite an actor like that."

Marion and Geoff is on Wednesdays on BBC2 at 10pm.

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