Andy Murray does not enjoy the limelight. For the entirety of his multiple-Grand-Slam-winning tennis career, the so-called ‘dour Scot’ always maintained a respectful but distant relationship with the media and avoided prying cameras or additional scrutiny into his personal life. He’d absolutely thrive on being on centre court, but centre of attention? No thanks.

So four months after retiring from a profession that made him a global sporting name, it will come as a surprise to hear Murray has decided to embark on a live stage show tour of the UK next summer – reluctantly of course. “My team has really pushed me to do this,” he tells me from his living room, an hour or so after having done the school run.

While he was still playing, Murray was asked to speak at various events but he never did them. But with retirement comes “quite a lot of free time on my hands, and I’m keen to try things that make me feel a bit uncomfortable”.

The idea of a tour was brought to him a few months ago. “I was reluctant at first. But I’ve done a couple of speaking engagements recently that went quite well. I was nervous before them, but then felt much better having finished and was glad I’d done it.”

With shows in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London in the weeks leading up to Wimbledon next summer, all hosted by BBC sports broadcaster and fellow Scot Andrew Cotter, Murray is certainly not treating it as the beginning of a stand-up career. “My biggest fear is agreeing to do something like this and then no one wants to come along and watch it,” he says.

Instead, he sees it as an opportunity “to speak to fans and people that have followed me throughout my career in a different way than how they usually see me being interviewed after a match or in a press conference room. Hopefully, it’s a little bit more intimate and I’m able to share some stories I haven’t discussed before.”

Matt Crockett

GQ: Will Andrew Cotter be free to grill you about anything?

Andy Murray: I’ve seen Andrew on TV and have also spent time with him in person, away from cameras, and he’s a funny, funny dude. So I’m happy to pretty much discuss anything that he wants, then I guess we’ll see how each night goes. There might be certain stories or topics that the audience enjoys listening to, or that work, but it’ll be quite fluid. When these things are quite scripted, it comes across as planned and maybe not as natural.

Can you guarantee the audience that there will be tears?

A lot of people talk to me about when I won Wimbledon the first time and what that meant for them, where they were, and how it made them feel. Whereas for me, it was pure relief it was over and done. Things that might not be emotional to me are to other people, and stuff that is quite mundane and boring to me – because I’ve lived it my whole life – other people are interested to hear about. So it’s hard to know what subjects or what emotions are going to come with certain topics.

Your greatest fear about doing this is no one showing up but isn’t that what rent-a-crowd is for?

[Laughs] Yeah, I mean, I’ve got a lot of family up in Scotland so I’m hoping we can fill a few seats.

Any plans to have guest appearances at the shows?

We’ve spoken about potentially doing that on different nights. Now that I’ve agreed to do it, I want the people coming to go away from it thinking, I’ve got my money’s worth, and to take something positive away from it. When I’m doing it in Wimbledon, my brother lives just around the corner, he can give a different insight into my personality, what I’m like away from the spotlight, but there’s nothing agreed yet.

What about your wife, Kim? Is she up for a cameo?

I don’t think she was that keen on doing it but it has been discussed. She probably needs a bit more persuading.

Over the years, especially when you first started out playing tennis, you were subjected to a pretty torrid time by the media. Is part of the reason behind doing these intimate shows so that you can control the narrative?

I guess we could trust each other towards the end of my career, but I had some experiences early in my career with the media that meant I then found it difficult to open up and feel like I was really being myself. I found myself getting defensive as soon as I walked into press conferences or when I was in front of a TV camera. It wasn’t until my late twenties where I started to feel a bit more comfortable and confident in myself just to walk into those rooms and feel normal.

And phones will not be allowed at the shows.

Nowadays everyone’s got their phones out all of the time so hopefully the crowd interacts a little bit more with the show, but also with me. I feel like I can be honest and open about things without the worry of someone recording something that you said and it blowing up. I don’t want to be going in there every night stressing about saying something about a player that is said in jest that ends up meaning that I hate them. The intention is not to be really controversial and get my name out there in that way, it’s to try to give an experience to fans that have followed me for a long time, that’s something fun and enjoyable to do.

It wouldn’t be a GQ interview if we didn’t talk about style…

Style, did you say? I’m devoid of style. I don’t have any of that, unfortunately.

Have you thought about what you’re going to be wearing up on stage?

When they did the photos for the show, they brought a bunch of stuff for me and I was like, Look, I wouldn’t wear any of that, but just chuck it on me. You tell me what to wear and I will give it a go. So I’ll wear whatever because I don’t confess to know anything about that stuff.

Perhaps this is the moment where you start dressing more flamboyantly…

[Laughs] Well, maybe I will surprise everyone. Who knows?

Tickets to Andy Murray’s Centre Stage UK Theatre Tour will go on sale 14 November here.