Ted's excellent adventures

The posters bill it as a Farewell Tour, but no one's convinced. Didn't Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson say The Fast Show would finish after three BBC2 series in 1997? Or when the much-loved characters appeared in a run of Holsten Pils ads? Or when they did that Ted and Ralph one-off in 1998? Or after that Christmas special in 2000? But as Frank Sinatra would have told you, in showbiz farewell is a relative term.

It's a crisp morning in York, where the Fast Show roadshow is mid-way through a lengthy tour, but the prime movers behind it all are in fine fettle. They are both 44 years old but are not showing it. A beer, a book and bed. Whitehouse usually checks out the hotel gym.

Their riotous days are behind them: 'If we had done this in the late Eighties we would probably be dead by now.' Simon Day (a Fast Show cohort) calls us a cross between Last Of The Summer Wine and Motley Crue. With the emphasis on Last Of The Summer Wine.'

They make an engaging double act. Whitehouse is whippet-thin and lively, Higson fuller-faced and deadpan. The show last night was a stormer. Some of the cheers when the likes of soccer pundit Ron Manager and pickled QC Rowley Birkin appeared were louder than the laughs when they disappeared. Simon Day's Billy Bleach is a deceptively complex people's hero, much in the manner of Al Murray's Pub Landlord. Whitehouse and Higson got a virtual standing ovation for a Lloyd Webberish set-piece in which Ted plays Elaine Page to Ralph's Barbara Dickson.

Everyone has their moment. Mark Williams does Shaggy's 'It Wasn't Me' on the ukelele. Arabella Weir's 'No Offence' cosmetics assistant recommends a new fragrance, 'Angus Deayton's Crotch-On-A-Rope'. Sadly John Thomson's TV work meant he couldn't appear, so there is no 'nice'. The climax is a disco nativity finale. 'Don't worry, that'll be topical by the time the tour finishes,' smiles Higson. Cock-ups keep things fresh. Higson's trousers spontaneously fall down during his Mad Painter sketch. 'I might keep that in,' he muses.

Whitehouse is not quite sure how seriously to encapsulate it. At one point he calls it 'sweaty old men running around', but later he is rather pleased by his description of it as 'almost theatre'. The reality is probably a bit of both.

It is definitely aimed at the funny bone. New material, same catchphrases. Any suggestion that the appearance by three al Qaeda operatives chanting 'Suit you, sir' is an indictment of Western imperialism is laughed out of the lounge. 'It's just a gag about what might happen if our videos fell into the wrong hands,' clarifies Higson.

Critics will undoubtedly say that the team is milking a formula dry, but Whitehouse is unrepentant. 'The Fast Show was always about repetition. It's like the blues. Three chords, always the same. We know what audiences want. No one wanted to hear David Bowie's new album. Everybody wanted him to do Ziggy Stardust and finally he realised it too.'

The team last performed in London in 1998 and would have returned sooner but other commitments got in the way. Whitehouse recorded the second series of his mid-life crisis sitcom Happiness. He also appears as a stagehand in celebrity Fast Show fan Johnny Depp's next movie, Neverland, about Peter Pan creator J.M. Barrie. 'I felt it would be a bit churlish to turn him down as he did "Suit You" with us.' He currently lives in France and there is talk of him popping onstage at the London shows. Higson also has numerous projects on the go. A sitcom spin-off of lubricious car salesman Swiss Toni will be a major cog in youth channel BBC3's scheduling next year. Meanwhile, his debut novel King Of The Ants has just been filmed by Hollywood director Stuart Gordon, with George 'Norm' Wendt from Cheers starring.

All of which must have made the twosome embarrassingly wealthy. They've both got nice London houses but eschew the trappings of wealth. There is no limo taking them to the venues and the backstage treats consist of sandwiches and beer.