BROADCASTER and comedy writer Danny Baker has recently embarked on his first-ever tour, coming to Barrow later this month. The Saturday morning radio motormouth tells KARL STEEL that he thinks he's finally found his calling

AT an age where most people would be looking to wind things down, writer and radio presenter Danny Baker is thinking about a new career.

Despite the fact that he's turning 60 this summer, the former music journalist and BBC 5 Live host says that it's only now he's found his true calling.

Delving into his deep mine of anecdotes and picking stories out at random, his Cradle to the Stage live show is just the motormouth Londoner doing what he does best - saying whatever springs to mind.

"It's a lot like the radio show, but you actually hear the laughter, of course," says Danny.

"I've loved it so far, and it's gone so well that they're already booking me in for shows into next year.

"Having written for so many comedians over the years, I've just never had that lust to do it myself, so it's surprised me a bit how much I've thrived.

"Obviously the difference between this and stand-up is that comedians have their routines and their carefully-planned jokes - this isn't an act, it's just whatever I think of next. There are some stories that I didn't even think of telling, but when they came up, they went down really well and they've become some of the centre-pieces of the show."

Until the tour started just over a month ago, Danny had no idea what to expect. There was no meticulous planning, writing of gags or last-minute trimming to get the show down to a couple of hours.

But when he's made a living recounting his working life alongside the world's greatest celebrities, coupled with an eventful upbringing dominated by the wheeler-dealer antics of his dad, there's no shortage of tales to tell.

By the time Danny arrives at The Forum, in Barrow, on Wednesday March 22, the show will be no more finely-honed than it is already, as every night consists of him walking on stage and seeing what sets him off.

The stage show could be seen as an off-shoot of his autobiography, or simply the bits that he couldn't cram into his 2015 eight-part BBC sitcom series, Cradle to Grave.

"Sat in the dressing room before the first live show, even my wife couldn't understand why I was remarkably calm, but on the radio, amazingly they let me walk in five minutes before and just make up a show on the spot," he says.

"It's not that difficult, and a stage show isn't all that different.

"Really, I've been preparing for this show for 40-odd years, and the only work has been trying to fashion it into some kind of direction.

"If the mic is open, and people have come along, then I'll always have something to say.

"I've done everything in my career, and having worked with everyone from Tommy Cooper, Kenneth Williams to Michael Jackson, I've got a fair few stories to share - I don't know why I've not done it before now.


"People have come up to me afterwards and said 'I didn't want to come, but he dragged me', or 'it's not usually my thing, but I loved it', which is always good to hear. They say 'I didn't know what to expect' - well that makes two of us!

"If you've seen the TV show, it's one and the same, in that it's mostly stories about my old man, but these are the extra stories that we didn't film.

"As you would expect from me, it's pretty relentless, and I never really know what order stories are going to arrive in, or how they'll arrive - it is just like light bulbs going on. It's like opening a Swiss Army Knife at times, and seeing what comes out.

"I just prowl about the stage - I come off dripping with sweat because I must walk miles every night - and I just pluck stuff out of the air.

"It's hard to believe people get paid for this, because it isn't work.

"At a lot of these book festivals I found myself being interviewed, but turning away from the interviewer to address the audience with a story. Someone pointed out I should take that and get paid for it - it turns out that this is what I should have been doing since the beginning."

Although he used to frequently tour with bands when he was starting out as a rock magazine journalist in the 1970s, his travels have only taken him to Barrow on one occasion - and that was as a boy.

Unsurprisingly, it was the football that brought him here; the former 606 football phone-in presenter and lifelong Millwall fan has had many unbelievable experiences and encounters following the game, but his previous trip to the Furness peninsula still sticks in his mind 52 years later.

"I went to Barrow to see Millwall win 5-0, when I was just about eight years old," he recalls.

"I think it must have been the longest away trip we did, but my old man would do that sometimes. He had some business up in Liverpool - don't ask me what that was - so I imagine that's why we went up to Barrow.

"Even now I still think of Barrow as a league side, as we were both fellow strugglers back then, and it always comes as a surprise when I realise they're not.

"When I saw Barrow on the list of tour dates, that was the first thing I thought of, because for 50 years I've been wishing we could play Barrow every week."

Even though it's been more than half a century since he was in town, you might think he'd be keen to see how much things had changed. But Danny is known for his honesty, and he admits that he's not really interested in all that - he knows exactly how he'll fill his time in Furness.

"I usually arrive early enough to have a look around, and I should really do something that's culturally satisfying, but if I'm honest, I just seek out the record shops.

"Even if there are no record shops, I'll sniff them out. I could find records in the Gobi Desert.

"I've had some tremendous successes adding to my record collection on this tour, so that's what I'm doing as soon as I get to Barrow."

You might catch him rooting through records in one of our charity shops, but if not, Danny Baker performs Cradle to the Stage at The Forum, in Barrow, on Wednesday March 22. Tickets are available from the venue's box office.