Cradle To The Stage hits the road in 2017

Broadcaster Danny Baker has announced his first ever stand-up tour.

His Cradle To The Stage tour will take in 35 dates, starting at the Leeds City Varieties February 1 and culminating at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire on April 1.

The show takes its title from Cradle To The Grave, the BBC Two show based on his memoirs which starred Peter Kay as his father. A second series was confirmed a year ago, but has yet to air. Maker is currently working on the third installment of his memoirs.

Of the tour, Baker said: ‘The stage has always been my first love. Let me put that another way. I have never done anything like this before in my life. 

‘However, to travel from town to town addressing a fabulous gathering of like-minded chums each night seems to me exactly what Shakespeare would have done, had not the hefty rent at The Globe kept him in London. As a consequence, William Shakespeare toured about as frequently as Kate Bush. 

‘Well not me. I own very few theatres anymore and so I am now totally free to charge about here and there wowing the folks with my anecdotal back catalogue, games involving sausages and impressive six-octave range.’

He promised that ‘no two nights of will be the same’ – which he put down to being ‘hopeless at learning scripts and because ‘I still have no idea what I am going to include’

Baker, who fronts a Saturday morning show on BBC Radio 5 Live added: ‘I will of course arrive in front of you going off like a Cacophonous Catherine Wheel of Chat, armed with hundreds of tall tales to tell many complete with proof from my family picture album to stop you thinking I am simply raving. I’ve been at this showman racket a full 40 years now my friends – there is truly much to discuss and plenty to be held to account for.

‘Content wise I will make Springsteen and Dodd look like short changing slackers. I can’t wait. This is the sort of radio I’ve always wanted to do, ie, radio without radio. Just me and you.’

Baker was diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer in 2010, but a year later revealed he had been given the all-clear.

Click here for tickets to Cradle To The Stage.

Published: 28 Oct 2016