Harry Enfield, legendary British comedian, pioneering 1990s satirist, is sitting in a small, brightly lit London kitchen beside a sink. It’s almost a surprise.

Early communications from his people suggested Enfield would only be interviewed about his upcoming Australian tour, Harry Enfield: And No Chums, if he did it as one of his famous comedy characters.

Cash-waving Cockney loudmouth Loadsamoney perhaps. Or maybe well-bred fool Tim Nice-But-Dim Esq, or cheesy radio DJ Dave “Nicey” Nice (my vote). All part of the cavalcade of characters he played in BBC TV shows that made Enfield a household name in Britain from the 1980s onwards.

But here is the real Enfield, hands clasped on top his head as he explains why there is a hammer an arm’s reach away on the sink top. “Well, one of my people is sitting here shaking his head and giggling,” Enfield says of a confidant just beyond the laptop’s screen. “One has to discipline one’s people sometimes, right?”

In the 1990s, more than 10 million people tuned in to watch Enfield’s sketch TV shows, from Harry Enfield’s Television Programme to Harry Enfield & Chums and Harry & Paul, the latter adding his longtime collaborator Paul Whitehouse to the title.

Enfield was already famous in late-1980s Britain for TV appearances as Greek kebab-shop owner character Stavros and Loadsamoney, the bravado-infused figure satirising prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s ideology and politics. When Enfield got his own show, a plethora of comedy guises and double acts was unleashed, ranging from clueless upper-class twit Tim Nice-But-Dim Esq, working-class caricatures Wayne and Waynetta Slob, witless young Conservative Tory Boy and cheesy radio DJs Smashie and Nicey.

Such was the fame of Enfield’s recalcitrant adolescent character Kevin the Teenager, he and best friend Perry, played by actor, director and regular collaborator Kathy Burke, got their own feature film, Kevin & Perry Go Large, in 2000.

The movie’s promotional tour 25 years ago brought Enfield to Australia for the first time, although he barely saw the place. “It’s the only time I’ve been there, and I just really sat in a hotel room for two days,” he says. “Then I went out at lunchtime, cuddled the Sydney Opera House and then ran back. That was all I did. It was nice to fondle it.”

Enfield’s TV shows in the 1990s and 2000s were shown here, but he may be better known for The Windsors (2016-2023), a sitcom lampooning the British royal family in which Enfield played Prince Charles and then the King. His portrayal of the monarch – all furrowed brow, cuff-twiddling and starchy downturned mouth – was, he says, parody but not without empathy. That’s been his approach with every character, no matter their stature.

“What Paul Whitehouse and Kathy Burke and I have always done is a lot of stuff that’s full of truth,” he says. “With Kevin the Teenager, everyone has teenagers, they know that kind of thing, but it’s always nice, it’s never nasty. It might be mischievous, but it’s never malicious. And I think that’s what people like really. Or most people.”

Enfield, who rarely gives interviews and eschews celebrity status, is segmenting Harry Enfield: And No Chums between character performance, talking about his career and answering questions from the audience.

“Obviously, I’m very old to be doing Kevin now,” he says. “I’m 64. But I’ll be talking about how he affects my life these days. There will be loads of characters in the show, but I’ll also be talking about my life in comedy and how [comedy has] changed and also the people I’ve done that I’ve got into trouble for doing, maybe a little bit.”

There are some characters from decades ago that he wouldn’t do now. “Because things have changed a bit,” he says. “People are more wary. I’m not really sure who invents the rules these days.”

He recalls working on satirical TV puppet show Spitting Image and voicing boxer Frank Bruno, a casting that wouldn’t happen today. He’s not certain Women, Know Your Limits!, his satire about misogyny – presented as a 1930s-style British public service announcement about the terrors of letting women think for themselves – would be allowed now either.

“There’d probably be a lot of people saying you’re perpetuating stereotypes,” he says. “Which is rubbish, obviously, but that’s just an example. In fact, a few years ago, I went on this yoga week and there was this German woman who was very sweet but kept on frowning at me.

“I thought, oh, I don’t know what I’ve done. And then one day, she came up and said, ‘I’ve realised who you are. You’re Women, Know Your Limits!’ She was a professor in gender studies, and she said every year, the first thing she shows her new students is that sketch, and then they start from there. That was lovely, you know? Pretty much everything I do is that kind of thing.”

Enfield’s era of TV crammed with sketch comedy shows is over. Drama wins over comedy, he says, in terms of funding. He’s pleased to see David Mitchell and Robert Webb have a new TV sketch show, Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping, but equally cheered by the diversity and number of people making new comedy online.

“There are more people frightened of more things nowadays and more people frightened of offending anyone,” he says. “Well, people who want to be offended are always going to be offended. As I say, my thing is mischief, not malice. Some people will find that offensive because they’ve got a fixed view of what’s right and what’s wrong and they don’t really have a sense of humour about things.”

Enfield is a big fan of Australian comedian Sam Campbell and British poet, comedian and actor Tim Key, and is regularly taken to see new comedians by his adult children. He and Whitehouse get together as much as possible. “He’s the loveliest man,” Enfield says. “I once upset Richard Curtis. He said to me, ‘I’m still trying to get over when you said I’m the second-nicest man in the world after Paul Whitehouse.’”

What does he think of fans from the other side of the globe, in a place he visited once 25 years, wanting to see his show? Enfield may be part of a steady groundswell of tours by comics of his generation – Ben Elton, Tony Robinson, Alan Davies, Eddie Izzard, Bill Bailey to name a few – but their TV and live shows are perhaps better known here.

“Do you mean I’m culty?” Enfield says, leaning forward with a quizzical smile. “I’ve never been culty over here, I’ve just been on the telly. So, I like being a cult. That’s good.”

He is greatly looking forward to being in Australia again, although his friend Elton, a longtime Australian resident, will be away.

“I’m coming to talk to everyone about everything,” he says. “Including meeting Camilla in real life.”

What was that like? “It was cool,” Enfield says. “She was very nice. I sat next her in church, and we had a little chat. I didn’t tell her some of the nastier things … not nasty, but some of the silly and naughty things that we’ve done [about her].”

Enfield looks offscreen as he recollects. “There was a time when Paul and I were doing a sketch,” he says. “We’re at home and I catch him in bed – I can see the bedsheets are sort of shuffling a bit – and I pulled back his blankets and he’s having a little masturbate over a picture of Camilla Parker-Bowles.

“I didn’t tell her that. You don’t sit in church saying, ‘We did a sketch where we were wanking over you.’”

Harry Enfield: And No Chums is at the Sydney Opera House on November 12 and Hamer Hall on November 19.