When Jim Davidson takes to the stage in Margate on Sunday, it will be 46 years since he first brought his stand-up show to the town.

A lot has happened since then. The traditional seaside town has fallen down at heel and picked itself up again. Dreamland died and was resurrected.

The comic himself rose to become one of the nation's best-loved performers – fronting Big Break and the Generation Game, hugely popular Saturday evening fare watched by millions.

But, perhaps most significantly, moods and sensibilities have altered beyond recognition. Some things acceptable in 1975 are, not to put too fine a point on it, unacceptable today to the majority.

For his critics, comedian Jim Davidson is a living monument to the old guard, where sexism, homophobia and casual racism were once an acceptable part of a routine. But times were different. Britain was different.

And while many adjusted their act to reflect that societal shift, Davidson continues to plough an 'old school' furrow.

Over recent years many theatres have stopped taking his bookings due to the content of his routines – Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre and Tunbridge Wells' Assembly Hall being just two.

Yet woe betide you if you suggest that perhaps toning down some of his public proclamations would allow him to recapture some of his hey-day when he was a regular on our screens and clearly a hit with viewers.

"What's my jokes of old got to do with now? Things change," he tells KentOnline. "I don't alter my act one bit to suit anyone and I'm certainly not going to convince any snowflakes or whatever that I'm the guy to come and watch.

"Let them go and watch their comedians, who don't make me or people my age laugh, but make young people laugh.

"That's fine. Get on with it. Just let me do what I want to do. But I'm certainly not going to alter my act to please someone who is just sitting there and can't wait to be offended. It's crazy.

"Tone things down? For a mainstream audience? I don't want a wider audience."

Certainly he does very well for himself on the touring circuit. The crowds lap him up.

"I played in a club recently," he tells me, "and I couldn't do my act. People were laughing and cheering so much."

And his disdain of modern comics is obvious.

"People who go to university, let them go and mix with all the other university people. I'm a working class man and I make people laugh.

"I didn't go to university. People who do are so happy with themselves and in their little clique. Let them get on with what they do, I'll do what I do. I don't listen to criticism because I don't hear any.

"People aren't going to come and see me to criticise me are they?"

But others do – and it clearly riles him.

As we speak he's just finished filming the latest instalment of his online TV channel, delivered via subscription streaming service Ustreme.

It's a reposte to ITV documentary Britain in Black and White, hosted by Diversity frontman Ashley Banjo, which aired on Tuesday night.

It follows on from remarks he made on his YouTube channel following Diversity's controversial Black Lives Matter performance on last summer's Britain's Got Talent.

It's not a video which does Davidson's claims to not be racist any favours. In it he says: "What was the point? I saw it on the day a black man was charged with murdering someone in Birmingham and injure several others.

"I don't know what you want? You want to be famous – you want to be known around the world. You don't give a **** about George [Floyd].

"There's loads of white people sticking up for you, sticking up for Black Lives Matter – young white girls walking around with banners. Things like 'Defund the Police', 'Support Black People'.

"Well, I say most young girls, Gemma's sister is not holding up a banner as she was violently mugged by three black men. Perhaps Diversity can do a mugging thing."

When sitting down for an interview with Banjo for this week's show things end badly.

"I walked out, halfway through," Davidson admits. "I found the narrative had already been written really. He was reading his questions off of an iPhone and when I answered it didn't prompt his next question – it was just one after another.

"Once again you get edited to be the bad guy and I'm just getting a bit fed up with it. It's terrible."

One wonders why on earth he agreed to take part in the first place.

But the interview broadcast is not dissimilar to my experience. He is constantly prickly, constantly assuming you are trying to pin a negative badge on him or lead him down a route towards a negative headline.

Davidson is, you cannot help but feel, in an 'us against them' mentality – and it's a position from which he is refusing to budge.

"I'm sick of all these lefty people trying to impose their will on others," he says. "I don't try and impose my will on other people. Don't come and see me.

"All these councils who have banned Chubby Brown. Are they mad? Who do they think they are? They're all ****** lefty people that want their ideals spread out.

"If you're not with us, you're against us and that's what it's about. I can't bear it. I can't ******* bear it."

In his mind, all his opponents and critics are 'lefties'. So, I ask, what does he make of one of Kent and the UK's most political hot potatoes – that of refugees taking their life in their hands by crossing the English Channel?

"There are 25,000 registered as coming ashore and the talk is there are tonnes of people paddling ashore and then just running off. So you can multiple that by three.

"It seems to be Kent is taking all the strain of that. And again, the people of Kent can't raise their voices about it because they'd be called racist.

"If you look at all the lefties, the idealistic young people who glue themselves to the M2, you throw Nigel Farage to them and they'd kill him for saying what the majority of people think."

Before I get the opportunity to discuss the whole cancel culture and woke movement in any more detail he tells me "I can see which direction this is heading" and promptly hangs up.

Which is a shame. Perhaps he thought I'd gone to university (I haven't).

'If you look at all the lefties, the idealistic young people who glue themselves to the M2, you throw Nigel Farage to them and they'd kill him for saying what the majority of people think...'

Last year he took to YouTube to vow "never, ever do jokes about black people again".

Adding: "I'm not going to get on my knee, and I'm not going to go to every black person I see, 'hail you'. I'm not going to apologise for the past; the past was the past.

"The intent was not to insult. It was to make people laugh. So I will never ever do a joke about a black person again. Let's all try [and] live in harmony."

He was, of course, far from alone in peddling jokes and routines back in the day which are considered grossly inappropriate today.

Mainstream entertainment of the 1970s and 1980s was full of casual racism and homophobia. But we have grown up as a culture, developed, corrected our stereotypes and moved on.

Davidson, now 67, continues, it seems, to struggle to adjust.

Jim Davidson performs at Margate's Winter Gardens on Sunday, October 24. Tickets on sale now.

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