Joseph Morpurgo on Gothic Horror show Hammerhead

Joseph Morpurgo answers our call in a hushed voice. "I'm in the library, can I ring back in two minutes?"

A library is where we might expect to find him. After all, he's a founding member of Austentatious, the group which improvises the 'lost work' of Jane Austen. Now, Morpurgo is exhuming his fourth solo hour, Hammerhead, from the gothic horror genre. "I am a keen reader," he says, "literature is something that is always kicking around in the back of my head. This show is a retelling of a very old horror story. It is a reinvention of something that lots of people will be familiar with.”

The literary links between the gothic horror of his new show and the Georgian fiction of Austentatious was not something that had immediately occured to him. "With Austentatious we have been doing it for so long the Austen aspect seems more a component. The main event of the show, I guess, is us messing about."

There's a little too much modesty there. While the Austentatious players make it look easy, what seems as natural as 'messing about' has evolved from professional improvisation and careful study. "Yes, that's true, we did a lot of research into the books in the early days. And, we each had areas to study like, 'Contemporary celebrity in the early 19th century'. And we would make presentations to each other! But, it would be impossible to do something as carefully calibrated as Jane Austen does in her books on-stage. It is rooted in the social milieu of Austen, but it is more of a loose flavour."

Breaking up the parts of something familiar and giving them new life is perhaps what unifies Morpurgo's shows. For instance, in his 2015 hour Soothing Sounds for Baby, with a few edits of real recordings, Kirsty Young transformed into a less sober host of Desert Island Discs. Hammerhead promises some technical tricks too, but there is a change in tone. "It is quite technical, and if you enjoyed the comedy of the previous show then it is something you can grab onto. There is continuity there. But, it definitely feels like a break and a new challenge. There is quite a stark division. The previous show had lots of techno-colours and dealt with themes of nostalgia, while this one is more in reds and blacks – it is spookier and stranger."

He credits Edinburgh with helping him to galvanise his creative process. "I love the Fringe, from a personal perspective of making stuff, it is a platform that really makes sense to me. Having something to work towards over the course of a year and producing something that exists for that month, and maybe afterwards, it is a bit like making an album."

This autumn, Morpurgo has a series airing on BBC Radio 4. Again, he has remixed something familiar, or in this case taking the familiar in a new direction is given a fairly literal meaning. "The show is called Walking Tour. You know when you go to Tate Modern or Windsor Castle, and you get those audio headsets that guide you round? Essentially, each episode is a head-set guiding the listener round a place in real time. They are all set in real places, but the way each one unfolds is quite different and becomes a strange adventure."

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Joseph Morpurgo: Hammerhead, Pleasance Courtyard (Two), 2-28 Aug (not 14), 8.00pm, £8-£12
Austentatious, Underbelly George Square (Udderbelly), 3-28 Aug, 1.30pm, £11.50-£14.50