His chain-smoking may have been legendary, but producers of a Fringe show about Bill Hicks have been warned not to let their star light up on stage.

This is the third year tribute show Bill Hicks: Slight Return has been performed at the Edinburgh festival – but the first time under Scotland’s new anti-smoking laws.

It means smoking is banned from any enclosed public area – which includes theatres as well as all the Fringe’s bars.

Publicity for Bill Hicks: Slight Return depicted its star Chas Early  smoking, and promising the late American comic – who used to boast that he got through two lighters a day – would be returning to Edinburgh ‘in defiance of the smoking ban’.

And that was enough to trigger a 'grumpy' warning phone call from the city council.

Associate producer Kat Portman said: ‘It was to double check to make sure we were not smoking at all. They are obviously very tight on it. They were pretty quick off the mark.’

Early has previously smoked throughout his portrayal of Hicks, who died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 at the age of 32.