Following another successful run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, ever-popular essayist David Sedaris has announced a 2014 tour of England with his show An Evening With David Sedaris (sadly not, as reported by some, the UK as a whole, with his only non-English date a night in Dublin). Beginning in Manchester on 25 March, the tour encompasses dates in Leamington Spa, Dublin, Cheltenham, Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Leeds, Newcastle and a four night run at London’s Cadogan Hall before finishing up in Oxford on 12 April. If his Edinburgh engagements are anything to go by, Sedaris will read from his essays and stories, along with unpublished diary entries, and take questions from the audience.

Sedaris is the author of eight collections of essays and short stories, including Barrel Fever (1994), Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (2004), When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008) and, most recently, this year’s Exploring Diabetes With Owls. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and NPR’s This American Life, and has broadcast three series of his BBC Radio 4 show Meet David Sedaris.

Sedaris brought An Evening With David Sedaris to Edinburgh in 2011 and 2013 to great acclaim. The Scotsman describes his 2013 show as ‘eliciting belly laughs from passages that are wry titters on the printed page’ and forging ‘a wonderfully unique, inclusive and surprisingly intimate relationship between author and readership’. The question and answer portion of the evening was particularly singled out for praise, The Herald saying each answer has ‘the same spellbinding qualities as his writing. A master at work.’ One proviso for those attending, however – as Sedaris himself told The Guardian this year, he will not entertain stupid questions: ‘Somebody once asked, ‘If you were a hot dog, what kind of condiment would you be?’ I could have answered, ‘Ketchup with you later.’ But I just sighed and said, ‘Next question.”