A TOP comedian who entertained audiences on a cruise ship which stopped off at Portland is heading for dry land and will be appearing in Weymouth.

Liverpool comic John Bishop will be at the Pavilion on Tuesday, November 16 as part of his new 'Right Here Right Now' tour.

This will be his eighth stand-up tour which will also see him perform in Poole at the Lighthouse as well as two performances at Bournemouth's BIC.

After more than a year of lockdown, John Bishop returned to stand-up earlier this summer in a most unlikely location - on a cruise ship with a crowd of 500.

Mr Bishop said: "This company phoned up and invited me to perform on a cruise ship that was touring round the British Isles.

"This was in June, before anything else was really open, and they said the cruise would definitely take place, and that’s what won me over.

"The thought of performing again was a big attraction for me.

"The cruise was not going very far. It was going from Southampton to Portland to Liverpool. It was meant to go on to Scotland, but the Scottish government wouldn’t let the ship in.

"So it just ended up going round the Isle of Man a couple of times.

"There's no way a travel agent could have sold that in 2019. People would have said, ‘what? I’m not doing that!’ But this year, people were so keen to go somewhere that they easily sold the places on the cruise."

The new tour kicked off in September and will visit major theatres and arenas around the UK and Ireland before culminating at The O2 in London on 8 April 2022.

The Liverpudlian has featured in a number of his own comedy programmes as well as producing and presenting documentaries like 'John Bishop’s Australia', 'John Bishop's Britain' and 'John Bishop: Only Joking' on BBC One.

In an eagerly awaited move, he will soon be seen as the Time Lord’s new friend Dan Lewis in the latest series of Doctor Who.

For the new tour, Mr Bishop said he will be touching on the topic of Covid – it is impossible to avoid it – but he promises it not be dominating the show.

"It’s got to be mentioned because it's a universal experience," he said.

"I’ll be talking about the experience of being at home and realising stuff about yourself.

"You’ve got to start being honest with yourself and admit, 'I'm probably never going to learn the piano because I had loads of time lately, and I still haven't done it. Maybe I shouldn’t have bought that piano'."

Tickets are priced at £38.

For more, visit: www.johnbishoponline.com