Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse have enjoyed a wonderfully successful TV partnership over the past quarter of a century. But during all that time, they have never done a live tour as a double act. Until now.

Fans all over the country are in for a treat, as the pair are finally breaking their live duck, with a national tour of their brand new show entitled Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse Legends!

You’ll be delighted to hear that Harry and Paul are just as funny off stage as on it. As we chat, so many well-loved characters spring to life before my very eyes.

They top each other’s punchlines and mercilessly take the mickey out of each other – in the way that only really close friends can.

I begin by asking why, after 25 years of highly successful TV collaboration, they have they finally decided to hit the road now.

“It’s the right time to do it – before we die,” laughs Paul, who has co-starred with Harry in such hugely popular series as Harry and Paul, Harry Enfield’s Television Programme and Harry Enfield and Chums.

Like any great double-act partner, Harry immediately chips in.

“We acknowledge in the show that we’re not in the first flush of youth. We’re both so old that we’re starting to get ailments. So if we don’t do this tour now, we never will. Every year, more of our fans are dying.”

“A lot of them can’t remember who we are,” Paul interjects.

“But to be fair, we can’t remember who we are, either.”

This is the sort of marvellous humour audiences can expect from Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse Legends! They can look forward to seeing what has become of such widely-loved characters as Loadsamoney, Stavros, The Old Gits, Smashie and Nicey, Kevin the Teenager, The Self-Righteous Brothers and The Surgeons.

Harry and Paul are undeniably excited about the prospect of touring for the first time, although Harry admits that, “We’re nervous about ‘drying’ [forgetting their lines]. But if we do that, of course it’ll be funny.”

Paul adds that, “We want to fulfil people’s expectations. When we did The Fast Show Live, we got a great a deal of affection from the audience. That feeds your enjoyment and everybody else’s.”

One of the reasons people feel such affection towards Harry and Paul is they love watching their close relationship acted out on stage.

“I hope it comes across how much we relish our relationship,” Paul continues. “We’ve sneaked in some stuff about our relationship and take the mickey out of each other all the time.”

As an example, Paul carries on, “I get so many people coming up to me and saying, ‘When are you and Harry going to get back together?’ I’m never away from the bloke. I can’t wait to stop working with him, as I’ve got some quality comedy to do. Put that in.”

“It’s general hatred,” Harry deadpans.

“Occasionally Paul tries to drop in a line relating to a certain insurance company, and I slap his wrist.”

“It’s not promoting the company,” says Paul.

“It’s just another way of having a go at each other.

Harry stops me showing off. We also allude to becoming the Old Gits in real life – we don’t need to wear make-up as them anymore. We’re a lot closer in age to The Old Gits now than we first did them.”

So what can we hope to see from the well-loved characters on show in Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse Legends!?

“It would have been easy to just churn out the old shows,” muses Paul, 57, “like when you see bands just doing their greatest hits. But we wanted to do something different. We’ll take the old stuff and give it a modern twist. So we couldn’t do Stavros without some kind of reference to the current situation in Greece.”

“He’ll only take drachmas now,” Harry chimes in.

And what about the world’s favourite DJs?

“You couldn’t do Smashie and Nicey stuff from the past, when there is so much to say about DJs now,” Harry reckons.

“They’re easy to modernise. Nicey’s been away on a ‘holiday’ for a few years.”

Talking about another very popular character, Harry says, “I was worried about making Loadsamoney work, but then I realised that he is just a stupid, naughty idiot.”

“I can see you’re really enjoying being the prize idiot, Harry,” Paul laughs.

Harry also tackles the issue of a 54-year-old comedian playing Kevin the Teenager.

“We’re doing a joke about me still playing him. The important thing for us is that it’s fun. I hope fans join in the fun and really enjoy it. We’d like them to leave saying, ‘That was actually very good’.

“I’m really looking forward to it. I think it’ll be great – as long as we know the lines and don’t have a heart attack.”

• Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse Legends! UK Tour comes to the BIC on Tuesday, October 27. For tickets visit bic.co.uk or harryandpaul.com.