The Hairy Bikers are Larger Than Live with huge autumn 2012 UK tour

The Hairy Bikers

As with gardening shows in the '80s and property shows in the '90s, cookery programmes in the past decade and a half have taken over the early-evening TV schedules like wildfire (or perhaps that should be wild rice). You name the chef and, more likely as not, they've been on browning their onions, dusting their buns, foaming their sauces or squeezing their moist sponges right in your faces and well before the watershed - it's like pantry porn and there's just no stopping them. Well there is - you can switch off and get a life, I guess.

Thankfully, away from the intense Snow Patrol sound-tracking of Masterchef and the cutesy twee bubble of perfection that is Rachel Khoo's little kitchen in Paris (she wants to try cooking in mine. No, really), we still have humour and The Hairy Bikers have it in spades (or rather large bowls, if you prefer). Si King and Dave Myers are two lovable leather-clad cooks who love their food, love its history and love the theatre of combining it altogether in one pot, packed full of puns, asides and inoffensive innuendo.

"Ooh Si, I think you've squirted too much cream on me buns, man" - "Dood, never mind me cream, it's me plums - I think they've shrivelled up in the heat". Family entertainment, all the way. But, daft adventures aside, home is where the appetite is and their next foodie tour will certainly prove all that and more.

And this is no ordinary foodie tour either - it's a riotous night out with celebrity guests, surprises and a chance to have a meal cooked for YOU, live on stage by the two big lads themselves. Rather than just endless demonstrations, The Hairy Bikers put on a real show with general high-jinks and gloriously childish pranks between the infallible pair.

Their autumn jaunt starts in Barrow in Furness for two nights on 30th September and 1st October, before biking down to Bradford, Grimsby, Birmingham, Richmond, Woking and several more through out the UK until Carlisle on 2nd December. We have tickets for most of the shows, priced from around £23.50.

Paul Pledger