COMEDIAN Frank Skinner has announced a nationwide tour this autumn and winter with a date at Wrexham confirmed for Friday, December 6.

Since his last tour, Skinner’s only live comedy appearances have been with The Man With No Show, which saw him perform an hour of completely improvised stand-up comedy with no material and no set list.

Now Skinner is back after four years, performing at 44 venues across the UK and Ireland starting on September 13 until December 11.

Skinner announced the Showbiz tour during a non-stop 10-hour radio show, which marked the 10 year anniversary of his hugely successful career at Absolute Radio. Frank’s award-winning show, The Frank Skinner Show, attracts over one million listeners per week, has achieved 10 million podcast downloads and saw him inducted into the Radio Academy’s Hall of Fame in 2016.

The 62-year-old’s live career began in 1987 when he spent £400 of his last £435 booking a room at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Four years later in 1991 he returned to the city and beat fellow nominees Jack Dee and Eddie Izzard to take home comedy’s most prestigious prize, The Perrier Award. Frank’s last live stand-up show, Man In a Suit, sold out its debut run at London’s Soho Theatre and a subsequent five week residency at the Leicester Square Theatre. Frank performed Man In a Suit for 24 consecutive nights at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014 and went on to release the show on DVD through Universal Studios UK.

Away from the stage, Skinner’s TV credentials in 2018 included writing and starring as Johnny Cash in Johnny Cash & the Ostrich – a one-off special forming part of the successful Urban Myths series airing on Sky Arts, as well as hosting a seventh series of BBC1’s Room 101.

As England made their World Cup run last summer, the iconic football anthem Three Lions, written by Frank alongside David Baddiel and The Lightning Seeds, topped the singles chart for a fourth separate time – the first time a single has ever reached number one on four separate occasions with the same artist line-up.

Frank Skinner: Showbiz is at Wrexham William Aston Hall at 7pm on Friday December 6. For more information and tickets go to www.thewilliamastonhall.com or call 0844 249 1000.-