It takes a certain kind of mentality to see the romantic side of prison rape, but one redneck ex-con managed it. Nick Morrison speaks to Otis Lee Crenshaw's creator.

OTIS Lee Crenshaw is a victim of the three strikes and you're out policy. The first time, it was for involuntary bigamy, "basically forgetting about paperwork", then there was something about possession of endangered coral, and finally there was the bull semen counterfeiting scam. A criminal, but a victimless one, unless you count the bulls, and they probably didn't mind too much.

But now he's on parole, and taking his cabaret show on tour. With a repertoire including Roberta, about a girl who decides to join the Ku Klux Klan, Do Anything You Want to the Girl But Don't Hurt Me, which is pretty self-explanatory, and The Scrabble Song, on how to tell if your woman is cheating on you by challenging her to a game of scrabble. The trick is to see if she puts down 'sores' instead of 'roses'.

The bad news is he is ambivalent about performing perhaps his most famous song: He Almost Looks Like You, having sung it so many times before. According to Q Magazine, the ballad about prison rape is good enough to appear on a Johnny Cash record.

The man behind Crenshaw is Rich Hall, who decided to branch out from straight stand-up five years ago to create one of the most memorable characters in comedy.

"I wanted to do a show with music in it, and not being that talented musically I thought 'what kind of character can pull off a string of songs that aren't that musically accomplished?'," says Hall. "He taught himself in prison, and he doesn't understand why the songs are never going to be recorded.

"That gives him a chance to rail against the whole country music scene, which rewards people like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain, who are doing synthesised shit, whereas the true hard-core musicians struggle to get a record contract."

Hall's starting to sound like his monster now, and he admits that's a little worrying, especially when your monster has been described as "the poet laureate of trailer-trash".

"The scary part of it is it's very easy for me to inhabit this character, although that is when you know you have a good character. It is a sign you have succeeded in your impersonation when you can respond to things and stay in character," he says.

Hall claims his inspiration for the redneck Crenshaw were the relatives who "crawled out of the woodwork" for family gatherings as he was growing up in Kentucky and Tennessee, although they fail to see the humour in it. But his creation has certainly been a hit: winning Hall the prestigious Perrier Award at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe and the Time Out Comedy Award the same year. He's also just fresh from a triumphant off-Broadway run.

"The best thing about Otis is that, as misguided as he is, he is actually a romantic. The women in the audience always fall for it - they like to imagine that in their capable hands they could mould him into something. The men go to the shows to meet all the women who show up.

"But Otis will not be involved with any woman who is not named Brenda. When he was married to the first one he got a prison tatt across his arm that said Brenda, and it's very painful to get a tattoo removed.

"It limits his options, but all options are limited when it comes to romance. There are men who say they're only going to go out with blondes; Otis only goes out with people named Brenda."

There is a touch of tragedy about Otis: he is the sort of redneck you want to take home and look after, but you wouldn't let him near your sister. Or his. And, for all that he's a redneck, he has a way with words which belies Hall's modest claim that the lyrics are scribbled down on napkins. Otis may have been going for five years, but there's plenty of life left in him.

"I get very excited if there are one or two new songs, it keeps the whole thing fresh," says Hall. "The biggest problem for any performer is you get tired of repeating yourself, but because we have got tonnes of new songs, it enlivens everything again. It is fun, and I can't believe I'm getting away with this shit."

* Otis Lee Crenshaw and The Black Liars perform at Middlesbrough Empire on Saturday (jan 25), 7.30pm. Tickets £10, from 01642-247755.