Tonight’s show at The Royal Festival Hall, in London, is a characteristically athletic Henry Rollins spoken-word performance. For almost three hours, he talks at an animated pace on a broad range of subjects, doesn’t break a sweat and forgoes any kind of liquid refreshment. He keeps his left arm locked at a severe angle, holding the mic up to his face, while his right arm enjoys a pseudo-autonomous existence from the rest of his body, accompanying his monologue with a series of expressive hand gestures that resemble the developmental stages of a new sign language. Occasionally to illustrate a point, he emits a raucous shriek – A sound not heard since giant prehistoric birds roamed the skies. The first time he does it, while imitating the angry screech of his personal assistant who he refers to as “The Demon,” the woman sitting next to me is caught off-guard and spits a mouthful of beer over the shoulders of the man sitting in front of her.

Henry’s early shows (documented on a series of great CDs released in the 1990s on the Quarterstick label) revealed a troubled man, willing himself into the role of stand-up performer, and getting better at it year on year. Tonight, his pronounced fear that he doesn’t have enough fingers to cut off and give to his audience in reparation for a bad show is dispelled by his ability as a storyteller and his drive to excel or die trying.

The pervasive anger that drove his initial spoken word performances has been replaced by an intense curiosity and motivated optimism. In 2009, Henry Rollins is an erudite globetrotter, like a punk Michael Palin, defending individual freedoms, while crusading against those who exploit these freedoms to spread misery and prejudice.

He tells a lot of stories tonight, all loosely tied together by the theme that the more you engage with different cultures the harder it is to hate:

He spends Thanksgiving with William Shatner’s family.

We hear about his role as white separatist gang leader, A.J. Weston, in the 2nd season of Sons of Anarchy, and the ensuing hate mail he received from 15 year old girls, all of it addressed to his on-screen character.

On the evening of the 2008 Presidential elections he watches Bad Brains singer, HR, take to the stage with a pair of suitcases, only for the troubled frontman to wander off at an arbitrary moment, having barely sung, through the crowd and out of the door, carrying his worldly possessions with him.

In Saudi Arabia, a terrifying, high-speed dash through rush hour traffic in a million dollar car, driven by the son of one of the world’s richest men, is followed by a tour of tastelessly furnished palaces connected by an enormous swimming pool that snakes between them.

In Bhopal, India, he creeps past armed guards and into the abandoned Union Carbide Plant – the site of one of the world’s most notorious industrial accidents. On the control console for Tank 610 where the accident originated, there is a sticker that reads: ‘Safety is everyone’s business.’

In the slums of Bangladesh he watches children eating from piles of freshly delivered garbage and witnesses the quaint cottage industry of clipping the needles from used hypodermics.

We learn the logistics of exporting a hard drive full of music to Iran, with the noble humanitarian goal of exposing as many people as possible to the music of The Ramones. During another cross-cultural exchange he is introduced to Sri Lankan Death Metal, while a teenage boy has his life changed forever by the force of nature that is Funhouse by The Stooges. Later he returns a stiff formal wave from the Burmese despot Than Shwe (who he encounters outside a hotel) with an extended middle finger.

Being a spectator at a Henry Rollins show is a strangely dual existence: The top half of your body is oriented towards the magnetic speaker on stage, while your bottom half, having been wedged in the same position for several hours, shifts uncomfortably in its seat. He acknowledges this in the final half hour, taking on the role of an imaginary audience member at his 2008 Hammersmith Apollo show: “He went on and on! He wouldn’t shut up!”

Since his last UK tour, Henry has been around the world. By the end of tonight’s performance it feels like we’ve all gone with him.