The world is a huge place, there’s lots of food for us to try
Eat, drink and be merry! Hairy Bikers, Si King and Dave Myers talk to MARION McMULLEN about hitting the road on their UK tour and their recipe for a perfect Christmas
evening’s entertainment and an opportunity for people to get to know us.
We want to keep all the best bits from the last tour. We did Living On A Prayer with the audience. It’s like a community singalong and has become a bit of a tradition. We’ve even been talking about a tour bus so we can have a drink afterwards.
Do you ever get lost for words? Dave:
(Laughs) The Q&A can go off on a tangent. We can do that for hours. On telly we can waffle for England but we’ve got an editor; we don’t have that on stage.
Si and I spend a lot of time together so we almost finish each other’s sentences. We have a kind of telepathy so we’re never lost for words.
Who comes to the live shows?
Si:
The lovely thing about going on tour is seeing the eclectic mix of people – everyone from five years old to 90.
We’ve been doing the TV shows for 15 years and it’s clear there is now a younger demographic watching us.
It’s all changed
Dave:
over the last few years. A lot of kids have grown up with us and we have a younger audience coming along. I always ask at the start if we have any children in the audience.
(Laughs) If we have youngsters in, I’ll say Si might have a little potty mouth, just in case a word pops out that shouldn’t, but it’s doesn’t really happen.
You’ve both had to deal with health issues with Si suffering a brain aneurysm and Dave dealing with glaucoma. How are you doing now?
Si:
Really good now. It’s was not the best of times, but we’re of a certain age now (Si is 53 and Dave is 62) when it’s inevitable.
We are getting on, but I think we are more mature now and our work is more serious, like Route 66, and I think it’s working for us.
Dave: What else is in the pipeline? Si:
Straight after Christmas I’ll be heading to Australia. I’ve been going there for 13 years and I’ve learned if I don’t drink any alcohol or eat anything, the jet lag is a lot better.
The flight is not as glamorous as when I started going.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions – other than to lose the weight I put on over Christmas – because I just make them and break them in four days.
Route 66 has gone global and our cookbook One Pot Wonder is now out, and is a really useful book, and we’ve got The Hairy Bikers Road Trip CD out which features tracks from Queen, Def Leppard, Bryan Adams, Whitesnake – stuff both of us listen to.
(Laughs) We’ll have to think up a series next year... assuming the BBC want another one.
When we started in 2004, we thought ‘if we do three series, that will be alright,’ and we’re still going.
Dave:
AN Evening With The Hairy Bikers comes to Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on October 18 and Coventry’s Warwick Arts Centre on
October 29.