OVER the years the Hairy Bikers have built up a huge following with their irreverant cookery/travel shows.

Now out live for the second time, they are on the verge of losing a lot of the goodwill people feel towards them if last night’s show is anything to go by.

Larger Than Life is too long, too loose, too chaotic and actually too strange to be recommended as a great night out.

Dave Myers and Simon King are genuinely amusing chaps, clearly great mates who enjoy a bit of banter.

But their new live show is just odd.

They are at their best doing what they do best - cooking live and chatting away as they do it.

It certainly produces the best smelling show you’ll see all year as they conjoured up a curry and a plate of salmon for some lucky audience members.

As for the rest of it, there were too many clips from their various programmes which fans will definitely have seen before. If you’re going to show clips, how about some out-takes and some amusing stories about life on the road?

The new slim-line Bikers - they are certainly a great advert for their new diet book - weren’t shy about showing off their new svelte pyshiques taking part in a strip wheel of fortune and prancing around in ridiculous costumes.

There was even a bizarre routine involving Dave Myers turning escapologist being wrapped in chains which left many people just wondering why? And the ending with Dave Myers in gold lame catsuit throwing out roses into the audience while doing a Freddie Mercury impression was just surreal.

Live the Bikers are much ruder than on TV, especially Simon King, and it clearly left a proportion of the audience more than uncomfortable - several people around me didn’t return for the second half.

The whole thing was just disjointed and ultimately disppointing.

Had this been a main course I think I’d have sent it back.