Hair-trigger timing, an eye for the detail of everyday life, and its absurdity, is the art form that Pam Ayres has made all her own.

Poetry lovers will converge on Tunbridge Wells and Medway for the show based on Pam’s most recent book of verse, You Made Me Late Again!, which became a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller.

While her warm, witty and approachable style may sound deceptively dashed off, Pam is a skilled writer and comedian, reflected in regular appearances of fast-paced BBC Radio 4 shows including Just a Minute, Say The Word and That Reminds Me.

Pam, who had been raised in a large, poor family, said of her poems: “Battery Hen was the first of the group that people got to know widely. And I Wish I’d Looked After My Teeth. Sling Another Chair Leg (on the Fire, Mother) was about the recession, everyone was hard-up. It was like it is now. It was about austerity.

“I’ve gone on to Twitter and one of the tweets I had was from the actor Hugh Bonneville and he said one of his happiest memories was seeing his father cry with laughter at that one. It was about people making do.”

Pam’s fortunes may have changed but she remains topical. She made headlines last year when she employed verse to express her horror at the scandal of horse meat being passed off within beef products.

“They have eaten poor old Dobbin who was grazing by the sea/ They put him in a Tesco burger, buy one get one free.”

Pam herself is an animal lover who lives in the Cotswolds and keeps rare breeds of cattle, as well as some sheep, pigs, chickens and guinea fowl. She is also a keen gardener and beekeeper and is a patron of the Battery Hen Welfare Trust.

Now 67, it is the realities of life as an OAP that come through in some of the poems within Pam’s new book.

“One of them is called We Never Did It Much but Now We Do It Every Night. It’s about snoring.”

TICKET DETAILS

An Audience with Pam Ayres is at Chatham’s Central Theatre on Saturday, June 28. Tickets £18 on 01634 338338. The following day – Sunday, June 29 – the show moves to the Assembly Hall Theatre in Tunbridge Wells at 5pm. Tickets cost £19.50. Call 01892 530613.