The Beatles may have had the USSR to get back to, but Bradford band Smokie is heading even further afield - China, to be precise.

Beijing is set to rock to its favourite Smokie tunes - including Living Next Door to Alice - when the band plays in the shadow of the Forbidden City this weekend.

And they could boast an audience of hundreds of millions when they perform live on Chinese TV on Sunday.

The legendary band, with more than 30 years in the business, is one of only a select number of bands, including Elton John, boy band 911, Wham! and Swedish duo Roxette, to be allowed to play in one of the last bastions of Communist rule.

It has taken more than a year to organise the visit after manager John Wagstaff formed a new music and media company, Triple 8, with bassist Terry Uttley and Chinese woman Savwan Lee.

John and Terry - who lives in Ilkley - flew to China on a fact-finding mission last year to establish links with business colleagues over there.

Other members of the band include vocalist Mike Craft, of Wilsden, key board player Martin Bullard, of Inverness, lead guitarist Mick McConnell, of Dewsbury, and drummer Steve Pinnell, of Middlesbrough. Performing in the far flung corners of the world is nothing new to Smokie whose members pride themselves on their spirit of adventure, having played gigs in places such as the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator in front of 20,000 fans at a sports stadium normally reserved for wrestling tournaments.

They were escorted by armed guards wherever they went, 4,000 riot police were on duty, and the streets around the stadium were lined with thousands of fans.

Few Western performers have tried to crack the Chinese market because the country has no equivalent of copyright laws and piracy is widespread.

Terry, 49, says they are still experiencing a few teething problems with the equipment but are hopeful any remaining problems will be ironed out before the two hour concerts tonight and tomorrow.

"We haven't a clue what sort of reaction we will get - they have never heard of us over here! They have only just started listening to Western music. But we like a challenge.

"Central Chinese television have been following us around and a big publicity campaign has been running too, so we anticipate thousands of people turning up at this brand new theatre this weekend.

"We recorded a traditional Chinese song, Nam Li Wan, which we 'Smokiefied' which we will be playing tomorrow so at least that should go down well!''