After three decades spent reporting on war and politics and as the face of serious news, John Sergeant is letting his lighter side shine through by returning to his first love - showbiz.

"MY goodness," says John Sergeant in a voice familiar from three decades reporting the news on the BBC and ITN, "who could have believed the Queen would refuse to go to the wedding of her son?"

We're speaking the day the monarch announced she wasn't going to Charles and Camilla's Town Hall wedding in Windsor. Sergeant, who only seconds before was saying nothing in politics surprises him any more, is gobsmacked that the Queen believes she can make the wedding a low key affair simply by not attending. "You couldn't have thought it up," he chuckles.

Don't get the wrong idea, Sergeant isn't turning royal correspondent after years of political reporting. After more than three decades of reporting world affairs, he's returned to his first love - performing. It was in 1966 that Alan Bennett chose him from the cast of the Oxford University revue at the Edinburgh Festival to appear in the BBC-TV comedy series On The Margin.

Young Sergeant opted to work with Bennett rather than take up a place he'd won as a Reuters news trainee. But he did return to journalism in the end, spending three years as a reporter on the Liverpool Echo before joining the BBC in London in 1970. Only since leaving ITN two years ago has he returned to showbiz.

He doesn't regret his decision to leave showbiz, armed with a reference from Bennett, in favour of reporting. He wanted to have adventures and go abroad, and very soon was doing just that after joining the BBC as a radio reporter in 1970. He was a war correspondent and covered European affairs, was political correspondent for both radio and TV, and presented Radio 4's Today and The World At One.

"I don't regret not becoming an actor. I was very conscious before long that I was in a very good job and very interesting job, and the fact that I wasn't hanging around waiting for someone to light me. My brother was an actor for a long time, so I saw that side of it," he says.

Since giving up TV reporting, he's been touring the country in his one-man show An Audience With John Sergeant, in which he talks about his life and work as well as answering questions from the audience. At the beginning it was also a chance to promote his autobiography Give Me Ten Seconds.

"I was asked to do the show and thought, 'that won't last very long'. I thought I'd just go to a few places and it's turned into a little cottage industry," he says.

"You think it's going to be quite daunting, but it's amazing how nicely it goes. You get such a charge from the audience. They lined up afterwards to have books signed. So the demand is there.

"Some of the theatres are lovely, although you don't want them to be too big. It's taken me by surprise every time I do it."

Sergeant goes as far as to say it's more enjoyable than reporting because you can see the audience. And, as they've paid money to be there, they have an incentive to have a good time. "I don't want to exaggerate how much I enjoy it because it's work but I wouldn't do it otherwise. It's nice to be in a theatre and have a big warm audience," he says.

HIS dry wit and comic timing have made him a popular presenter on BBC1's Have I Got News For You and Radio 4's The News Quiz. You can understand how people who recognised him only from serious news reporting might be taken aback by the humorous Sergeant. "People who knew me weren't surprised. I would always be fooling about at some point each day. But audiences were taken aback and that was part of the fun," he says.

"I suppose if I had the chance of being a comedian or something serious, I would do comedy now because I spent most of my time being serious."

The decision to give up TV reporting is another choice he doesn't regret. He didn't want to write another book while he was still working and, given a two-book offer, opted to leave ITN. It was "a bit of a wrench" but he was going off to do something he really wanted to do.

He's now written a book about Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minster who once "handbagged" him. This happened in front of the cameras on the steps of the Paris Embassy days before she resigned in 1990. He was pushed aside by her press secretary Sir Bernard Ingham in an incident that the British Press Guild named the most memorable broadcast of the year.

His book looks at her effect on the Conservative Party, or rather the damage she did to it, resulting in its current Opposition role. "It's a cracking story whether you love her or hate her, and goes a long way to explain why we're in our present state," he says.

The idea of writing fiction is tempting but he feels "it's very difficult and so many crazy things happen in real life."

* An Audience With John Sergeant is at York Grand Opera House on March 17. Tickets 0870 606 3595.

Published: 05/03/2005