Fast Show makes a comeback as a live tour

Paul Whitehouse: 'We need to do it quick before we’re all dead'

The Fast Show is to make a 30th anniversary comeback, with a live tour.

Series creators Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson are to take their characters on a 14-night UK tour, joined by original cast members Simon Day, Mark Williams, John Thomson and Arabella Weir.

If the live dates – based around a Q&A format – prove successful, they could pave the way to more Fast Show projects.

In an interview with The Sun this morning to launch the tour, Higson said: ‘We’ve had some ideas about using the characters in another format, like the Carry On films, or even a panto, so this tour is just to test the waters.

However it is likely to prove too expensive for a TV comeback, given the need for lots of locations for the quickfire sketches.

Higson also said: ‘I don’t think we’ll do any more TV stuff, we can’t do anything better than what already exists.

‘If you try and do new stuff, people will just say, "Oh, this new stuff isn’t as good as the old stuff". And if you just do the old characters, they’d be like, "Can’t they just do something new?".’

The tour – which kicks off in Stoke on March 18, following a warm-up gig at the Pleasance in London on February 18 – will therefore be a ‘greatest hits’ package, interspersed with Higson interviewing his colleagues.

They will chat together about 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 their former collaborator, the late Caroline Aherne.

Characters set to be revivied include mp; 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.

The Fast Show first aired on BBC Two on September 27, 1994 and ran to 1997, with specials in 2000 and 2014, and previously spawned two live tours in 1998 and 2002.

Higson said: ’It’s been 20 years since we last did anything on stage and thankfully we all still get along, probably because we’ve allowed each other to do other things outside of The Fast Show. Sleep with other people and the marriage stays strong.’

The pair said they were inspired to get on the road following a benefit gig in aid of Felix Dexter in October, when they revived a couple of characters.

Higson said: ‘I posted a thing on X [Twitter] saying the old team are back together and there was a massive response as people assumed The Fast Show was back and we’re going to do a DVD and live tour.

‘So I had to say, ‘No, it’s just for a one-off charity event’. But we thought, "OK, people are interested"… That was a spur to say, "Let’s do this".