HENRY Normal and Nigel Planer go way back. Having first toured together in the early 90s, the pair were reunited in 2023 when they combined their latest spoken word shows to create an evening of poetry and comedy. The shows have been winning over audiences up and down the country ever since.

Preparing to embark on their first national tour as a duo, Bafta-winning producer turned poet Henry and comedy legend Nigel are “bringing poetry to the people” and showcasing their newest work, as well as classic material from their impressive back catalogue.

Critically-acclaimed British actor, writer, and musician Nigel Planer is best known for his roles as Neil in the BBC 1980s comedy The Young Ones and Ralph Filthy in Filthy Rich & Catflap.

His poetry has been published in the Guardian and numerous anthologies, as well as the 1997 collection Unlike the Buddha. Nigel has collected his many years of poetic endeavours into one volume called Making Other Plans.

Henry Normal’s career spans over 40 years and includes writing and producing some of the country’s best loved TV programmes and films including The Royle family .

He has since toured with his ever-evolving poetry show, which “finds fun in the familiar, humour in the everyday and poignancy in the pitfalls of modern life”. It is, he says, a show about love, life and family that is as deeply moving as it is funny and often both at the same time.

Henry has had 15 poetry books published, including latest collection A Moonless Night.

Reflecting on how their worlds collided back in 2023, Nigel explains that “Henry and I met up again at Birkhamsted literary festival and he invited me on tour with him again, just like he did in the late Eighties when he first got me up off my a*se to go out and do gigs with him and read my poetry in front of an audience.”

Although the pair have worked in comedy television for most of their professional lives, poetry brought them together officially and Henry adds that “after 30 years in the desert, so to speak, doing TV, I happened upon Nigel at that book festival reading and it was like we’d only spoken yesterday.”

Henry and Nigel’s careers intertwined in the late 80s and early 90s, but 30 years on they joke that “we have each had plenty of pain to draw poetic inspiration from in the last 30 odd years.”

Dates on the upcoming autumn tour span the length and breadth of the UK, but their performance at The Studio in Bradford brings back special memories for different reasons. Nigel’s last visit to Bradford was pre-1986, just as The Studio first opened. Performing at the venue as “part of a Comic Strip, Young Ones or Bad News tour”, he adds: “I love playing that size of venue, the kind where you can get a real connection with people close up.”

In contrast, Henry has performed in Bradford many times over the last 50 years and finds the audiences “friendly, lively and intelligent”. Adding that he does have anecdotes from past performances in Bradford, Henry states that these are sadly “too rude for the newspapers, but if you come along to the show and ask during the Q&A sessions I might just tell you.”

The show is “a rollercoaster of emotions, literary excellence and above all, playfulness” and audiences can expect to laugh, chat and most importantly connect with Henry and Nigel as they explore the worlds of poetry and comedy with a Q&A, several spoken word performances and anecdotes from their hugely successful comedy TV careers.

At a time where live poetry performances are consistently selling out venues across the UK, the show is also ever-changing. Both Henry and Nigel highlight that “we’re always reviewing the situation and trying to fit new material in as we chat in the car on the way to our gigs. We change a little bit every night so audiences never get the same thing twice.”

With lots of their material coming from conversations in the car whilst travelling around the country, the show feels accessible, relatable and hilarious all at once.

Most importantly, they say, the show is about having fun. There will be singing, jokes, anecdotes, questions from the audience and “room for real life stories, confessions and the odd moving poem.”

As Nigel adds: “We are not pre-recorded and you can expect to be there in the moment with us, having a laugh.”

* Henry Normal and Nigel Planer will be at The Studio in Bradford on Tuesday, October 29. Visit bradford-theatres.co.uk