Not so long ago TV viewers were dogged by hugely irritating adverts featuring American businessmen Victor Kiam boasting about how he "liked the razor so much he bought the company".

Last year's hugely popular South American travel monologues by Peter Searles had the same effect on me - I liked them so much I visited the countries.

But while you wouldn't want to get stuck in a bar with me droning on about what I did last summer, you certainly do want to get a seat at the Daylesford Theatre for any of Searles' remaining shows - if you can get a ticket.

Although Sunday's show fell victim to the Super Bowl fall out I am told those hoping to watch tonight's sold out shows will have to rely on returns.

But it's worth taking the chance. In tonight's show Searles takes us to Bolivia and beyond in his sure-fire format of humour and real-life horror which form an entertaining and revealing insight into humanity.

Like most good journeys, its genesis is in the pub where he teams up with an alarmingly bearded South African with an equally alarming habit of pulling cured meat out of bag hidden in his underpants.

They hatch a plan to solve the mystery of the shaman cave in the Cerro Amboro - an unexplored national park which hasn't had any visitors for two years.

On the way Searles ends up in prison - but just as a visitor where he takes gifts to foreign prisoners.

But it's this willingness to explore the darker sides of human life which take Searles' anecdotes out of the mundane banter of the tourist and into the realm of the reflections of a serious traveller.

Certainly the prison tales had a big effect on me after hearing him last year recount his tale of how a friend campaigning for prisoner's rights in Peru was framed when Police planted drugs on him.

Coupled with hearing this and reading BBC journalist John Simpson's autobiography in which he had been threatened with similar treatment I was understandably nervous about my luggage when heading for Peru.

Shortly after buying my airline ticket I happened to bump into Searles in a Front Street club.

Looking for reassurance I asked him: "They won't plant drugs on me will they?" He replied: "Well, they might." Not exactly the response I was hoping for.

Thinking he was joking I asked him again, only for the same worrying response which only fuelled my rampant paranoia.

Needless to say I journeyed through South America with my clothes crammed into tiniest piece of luggage I could find in order to make sure it could remain with me at all times - even on planes. Not surprisingly the bag burst a short while later but I remained a free man.

But enough of that and back to Searles - in Bolivia he comes across two Americans jailed for drugs. They fritter away their time by taking cocaine paste and kerosene and drinking sugar cane alcohol, paid for by male prostitution.

One of them is moved to tears when the bearded South African donates his underpants, allowing the convict to throw away the rags he's wearing.

On route to the caves Searles gets drunk on beer fermented from spit, dosses down on a floor inhabited by pet tarantulas, avoids the advances of a marriage-minded lady Police officer and flees from gun-toting nazis. And all on a wet Wednesday.

In the jungle they are warned to avoid loggers, drug dealers and gold prospectors, all of whom like to greet strangers with death threats.

Each tale is told with wit, perfect comic timing and a good ear for accents. Such was Searles' flow on Sunday night the rain even managed to fall on cue, battering the theatre roof as he told of Amazonian downpours.

Which reminds me. Did I ever tell you about the time I was rained on quite heavily in Peru? No, wait, come back! It's really quite interesting....