THERE is something of an unspoken joke in seeing comedian Vic Reeves sitting on the stage of a literature festival, being asked about the great painters and sculptors who have inspired his artwork.

Armed with a broom as a makeshift pointer, the star of television shows including Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out, The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer and celebrity quiz Shooting Stars, guided the audience at the King’s Hall on Tuesday through some of the bizarre illustrations from his new book.

Leeds-born Vic Reeves – or Jim Moir to give him his real name – is very probably a bit of a genius, with a touch of great British eccentric rolled in for good luck.

His genre-defying and at times slightly juvenile brand of humour manages to pick at so many tiny, little threads in the fabric of the world about him, and expose them all as somehow ludicrous.

Vic has serious art training in his arsenal, and his bizarre drawings and paintings have starred in exhibitions at prestigious galleries.

Rather than being deadly serious about scaling the heights of high art, however, Vic seems mostly amused.

Let highly-educated critics analyse and categorise, the man does it because he finds it funny.

A standard Vic Reeves joke goes along the lines of: “It’s about this time of night I like to slip a petri dish under a squirrel.” Words like surreal don’t even begin to describe the way this man’s mind works.

He is best known for his television career, alongside his comedy equal, Bob Mortimer.

Vic’s literary credentials come in the form of several books he has written, the most recent of which is Vic Reeves’ Vast Book of World Knowledge.

The brief he was given, he told the audience, was to write a children’s book. Not feeling he was the man to write another Very Hungry Caterpillar, he was hit with sudden inspiration, if not obsession. to write and illustrate a not entirely accurate encyclopaedia. So he shut himself up in his shed – or ‘cabin’ as the manufacturer would have it – and spent his time amusing himself with depictions of the ancient, great Persian ruler Xerxes astride a miserable-looking and short legged ‘magnificent battle stallion’.

He admits he laughed certain body parts off when he created the image of two lovers sinking into quicksand, the man declaring ‘see you in hell’ to his beloved.

“If I find it funny, then I must have something to offer to the world,” said Vic.

His quick and unscripted sense of humour was apparent. The long-suffering literature festival microphone bearers, resplendent in their official orange sashes, were quickly dubbed the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.

Clever questions from members of the audience, were also cleverly, and amusingly, turned around and directed back.

The antics of Shooting Stars inspired many of the audience questions.

When asked his true opinion of Shooting Stars regular Ulrika Jonsson, the Harris Tweed-wearing Vic grinned and cryptically described her as a ‘lovely, ambitious lady’, but also a friend.

And when urged to verify his claim of being true Yorkshireman by singing On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘At, he was applauded for singing the chorus in the style of a club singer – another stock joke from the irreverent quiz show.