American comedian and author David Sedaris returning to Australia - and Canberra - for summer

The national capital is usually relegated to mid-week shows by some big names, but the comedian and author will be, happily, performing at the Canberra Theatre Centre on Saturday, February 1, at 7.30pm.

And we are the first cab off the rank on the Australian tour.

Tickets are available at davidsedaristour.com.au

The 67-year-old will be returning to New Zealand and Australia "for an evening filled with storytelling, observations, unpublished tales, audience Q&A and book signings"

The tour starts in Auckland on January 31, before heading to Australia, starting with the Canberra show on February 1, followed by performances in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Newcastle, Sydney and Brisbane.

Sedaris is the bestselling author of the books Happy-Go-Lucky, Calypso, Theft By Finding, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever.

He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker, BBC Radio 4 and podcast, This American Life.

There are more than 16 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into 32 languages.

He has been awarded the Terry Southern Prize for Humor, Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, Time Humorist of the Year Award, and in 2019, he was elected as a member into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Expect an evening that is an intoxicating mix of wit and self-deprecation.

"The happy-go-unlucky Sedaris is forever being frustrated, humiliated or downright annihilated, and the mishaps he chronicles probably explain why readers feel so fondly protective towards him," The Guardian in the UK reckons.