It's not every day you get to interview a man dubbed Ryan the Bisexual Lion about a show called Sex With Animals.

Yes, I’m sure some of your minds are racing, toes curling or faces scrunching up but American creator and writer Ryan Good assures me that no animals were harmed or pleasured in the making of his show.

“We did have a long discussion about the title and while it is a bit of a misdirection it definitely grabs people’s attentions,” says the actor who has just flown in from San Fransico and will be living in Islington during his three-week run at The Hope Theatre.

The idea for the one-man show was sparked by his trip to the Galapagos and the story of Lonesome George, the last known Pinta Island tortoise, who was given one last try to carry on his subspecies, but in Ryan’s words ‘at the ultimate moment nothing materialised’.

“Oh no!” I say, unsuccessfully stifling a childish giggle.

“Yes that was exactly my response,“ chuckles Ryan, “I thought it was so awful, so sad but also so perverted that I had to write it down and it became the opening of the show.”

Aside from anecdotes of gay penguins and monogamous albatrosses, Ryan was also inspired by his own recent relationship experiences and a world where gender, sexuality and dating is becoming increasingly fluid.

“The animals stuff is a bit of fun,” he says, ”and gets people thinking but my real goal is to put a human face on the topics we discuss such as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) issues and relationship structures.”

He began questioning monogamy a few years ago: “I was in a three person relationship with two girls where we were all dating each other and wanted to escalate it and I started thinking abut how a family fits into that.”

Now single, the 32-year-old, who has degrees in English literature and theatre from the University of Wisconsin, has no qualms about exposing his physique for the show, donning an extremely tight, shiny lion leotard for the performance.

“Lions are easily the most ferocious badass creatures out there and the males in particular scurry off into the forest and have 48 hour parties where they play with each other sexually,“ he says on his choice of costume.

The nitty gritty, intimate details of his own unconventional sex life are also exposed and he says on the whole the reception has been positive.

“Yes I did get one Scottish farmer come up and tell me details of a bachelor party that I really didn’t want to know,” he says.

“But in Edinburgh a lady came up and said she had been feeling the things I’d been talking about her whole life. It was an amazing moment.”

The liberated show sold out its entire run at the Edinburgh Fringe 2013 and now premieres in London following an award-winning run at Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Ryan, a long term member of American experimental theatre company Neo-Futurists, says: “My goal is that people consider what I’m saying in some way, whether gay, straight or somewhere in between.

“People should ask what level of monogamy they should be at.”

The Hope Theatre, Upper Street, Islington, May 28 to June 21, (Wednesday to Saturday), 7.30pm. Details: thehopetheatre.com