My word the Hairy Bikers are skinnie minnies now!

But that, unfortunately, is the nicest thing I can say about them - because losing weight seems to have lost them their mojo, as witnessed at The Hexagon last night.

Billed as the Larger Than Live tour (what exactly does that mean, please?) what this show consisted of, simply, was Si and Dave sitting in motorised thrones showing us videos of their TV shows which presumably most of the audience has seen before - I know I had.

"Oh remember when we ate that funny meat in Vietnam?" cries Si before waving to the big screen where the dog meat scenario is replayed, while he and Dave lounge in their thrones watching along with us. Money for old rope (or old TV clips)? Certainly.

There's a little bit of cooking thrown in (badly produced with chronic camera angles for the big screen), several poor attempts at audience particpiation and lots of mentions of their merchandise.

They clearly don't have the same scriptwriter for their stage shows as they do TV because it also was pretty unfunny - stand-up comics they are not.

Dave Myers (he's the smaller, calmer one with the darker hair), to be fair, is intelligent, likeable and down to earth and held the show together much better than Si who looked like he was auditioning for the dame's role in a kids' panto, all waving arms, fake consternation and arm folding. It's been a long time since I've cringed while watching a live show but I was nearly sliding to the floor virtually every time Si opened his mouth.

In fact even a panto audience would struggle to raise a laugh at his hammy attempts at comedy.

Towards the interval a large wheel was brought on stage for the dullest game ever with two member of the audience. To  cut a long , boring story short it ended up with Dave and Si taking their clothes off (poor Dave, as he said to Si while wobbling round, "I've still another stone to go") and using their crash helmets to cover their bits. Except that they had kept their pants on which made the whole climax pointless and quite frankly insulted the audience's intelligence.

To be honest the whole show was a bit of an insult and pointless too. By their own admission, The Hairy Bikers are not professional chefs nor trained comedians and it is glaringly obvious in their live show.

We love them on the telly and it hurts that they've become greedy moneywise while getting abstemious with their food.

Much better to spend the £25 ticket price on one of their books - maybe the diet one as it obviously works? Because this stage show just doesn't.

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