American comedienne Joan Rivers - as famous for plastic surgery as one-liners - is still in full spate. Steve Pratt catches up with her as she prepares to visit the North-East.

AMERICAN funny lady Joan Rivers appears to be in considerably better condition than her telephone. The comedienne is well-known for using cosmetic surgery to keep her youthful appearance, but her ancient phone at her New York apartment has not been rejuvenated.

"It's an old telephone system that they refuse to mend. I have to buy a new one," she explains, apologising for the initially poor transatlantic connection. A bit of jiggling with the cord manages to make the line clearer so she can enthuse about her rapid return to touring the UK with her stage show, including dates in York and Newcastle in October.

"What could be more fun than travelling around, getting up and making people laugh? That's fabulous. What a good life," she says. "I just love the business - and I'm not being cutesy. I just love everything. Someone said to me that it's a calling. Who was it? Who was I talking to? Robin Williams?."

In a career spanning four decades or more, the woman billed as "the most enigmatic and outrageous grande dame of comedy" has gained a reputation for her caustic wit and barbed one-liners. But touring is relatively new for her. She played the Edinburgh Festival three years ago, then took her Broke And Alone In The UK tour on the road last year.

Among the dates was York Grand Opera House, where she's returning with "paid escorts" Kit and the Widow. She has happy memories of her first visit to the city. "The Minster, I remember going to that, and to the centre of town, which is extraordinary," she recalls.

It appears that despite being famous and recognisable, she can walk about freely. "The way I look without make-up, they stop me and put a nickel in my hand or wrap a shawl round my shoulders," she says.

Rivers isn't afraid to laugh at herself, as her guest appearance in plastic surgery TV series Nip/Tuck demonstrated. "I get up at six in the morning to make that noon meeting. Why scare them?," she says of her make-up and beauty regime.

"The only good thing about having a long career is the amount of people that will come up and say, 'you made me laugh just after my husband died'. That kind of stuff. So that's very nice on the street when people say that. No-one comes up and spits in your face."

She's a regular visitor to this country. "I commute a lot," she says. "My husband was English and I have a liking for English people. I love the country and think it's beautiful."

She also reminds me, like the skilled self-publicist that she is, that she has her own British TV chat show on five, The Joan Rivers Position. Many guests, like Jordan and Colin & Justin, must have been strangers to an American. That was no problem for a woman who's rarely lost for words. "I didn't know half of them until they came on the show," she admits. "I was surprised because most stars are international. They cross borders back and forth. I love asking questions and finding out things you had no idea they were going to say."

The first time she can remember performing was when she was three-and-a-half and played a pussycat in a pre-kindergarten show. Her future was set. "It was always going to be acting and still really is because I am a funny lady. Acting is what makes the comedy work," she says.

The previous tour was "just heaven", she says. "That's why we're doing this again. We all had such fun together and audiences were so responsive. We're doing 16 cities in 16 days, we're going by bus and it's going to be great."

Ask if she finds audiences are different from place to place and her reply is "not a smidgeon - I say if there's a Starbucks in town, it means we're all watching the same stuff". In the past there have been language difficulties over certain words. We Brits, for instance, equated motels with sex ("cheap, cheap, cheap, slut, slut, slut") but she believes we're thinking along the same lines these days. "We all see the same movies. So it's wonderful because you can really say anything and people get it," she says.

Taking time off or retiring isn't something that occurs to her. As well as performing stand-up and presenting TV shows, she designs jewellery and writes plays. She's had three staged on Broadway, with a fourth waiting in the wings. "We have to decide if it's good enough to go to Broadway. That's a very difficult decision. When you work on something for two-and-a-half years, it's very hard to be the one to kill it," she explains.

* Joan Rivers appears at York Grand Opera House on October 22 (tickets 0870 606 3590) and at Newcastle City Hall on October 27 (tickets 0191 261 2606).