Suit you, sir! The Fast Show team and their catchphrases are reuniting for York-bound 30th anniversary spring tour. Scorchio!

The tour poster for An Evening With The Fast Show, booked into the Grand Opera House, York, this spring

THE Fast Show stars are reuniting for a 30th anniversary tour. The Grand Opera House, York, awaits Charlie Higson, Paul Whitehouse, Simon Day, John Thomson, Arabella Weir and Mark Williams on March 19 at 7.30pm.

Tickets go on sale at 10am tomorrow at atgtickets.com/york for An Evening With The Fast Show, whose 15-date itinerary takes in a second Yorkshire  gig at Sheffield City Hall on March 25 (tickets: sheffieldcityhall.co.uk) .  

The quickfire sketch show first aired on BBC Two on September 27 1994 and ran for three series until 1997 with the late Caroline Aherne as part of the cast. Special editions ensued, such as the three-part The Last Fast Show Ever in 2000, and tours were staged in 1998 and 2002.

An Evening With The Fast Show will provide a behind-the-scenes insight into the award-winning comedy’s favourite characters and catchphrases as they come alive anew on stage.

The cast will discuss how it all began, how they made the TV show and created the characters, and the fun they had doing it. This will be interspersed with performances of some of their best-loved sketches, monologues and songs, with on-screen inserts and a moment to remember former collaborator Aherne, who died in 2016.

Fans can expect the return of such favourites as Ted & Ralph, Jesse, Swiss Toni, Does My Bum Look Big In This?, Dave Angel, Jazz Club, The Suit You Tailors, Ron Manager, The Mad Painter, Rowley Birkin, Bob Fleming, Competitive Dad, Professor Denzil Dexter and The Girl Who Boys Can’t Hear.

Looking forward to reassembling on stage for the first time in 20 years, Higson says: “Taking The Fast Show out on tour is very much like making love to a beautiful woman.”

No Such Things As A Fish podcasters promise Nerd Immunity for geeks in York

Podcasters on the road: the No Such Thing As A Fish team of “QI Elves”

THE No Such Thing As A Fish podcast is back on the road with its first tour since 2019, bringing Nerd Immunity to the Grand Opera House, York, on November 8.

Suitable for “anyone with a thirst for knowledge, a taste for puns and a need for belly-laughs”, the weekly British podcast series is produced and presented by the researchers behind the BBC Two panel game QI: James Harkin, Andrew Hunter Murray, Anna Ptaszynski and Dan Schreiber.

In the podcast, each researcher, collectively known as “The QI Elves”, presents a favourite fact they have come across that week.

Since being launched, the podcast has attracted 700,000 subscribers. In 2014, it was named by Apple as that year’s Best New Podcast; in 2015 and 2016, it won the Internet Award in the Chortle Awards; in 2018, the Heinz Oberhummer Award for Science Communication.

The No Such Thing As A Fish team says: “We’re so glad to be not only getting out of the house but going all over the country, spreading the word of unbelievable facts wherever we go. Subject to Government guidelines, there’s no stopping us.”

Tickets for the 8pm show are on sale at atgtickets.com/york.