ANYONE who has played Twisters Comedy Club knows all about slogging their way to the top. There are an awful lot of stairs!

So when Eddie Large arrives at the club on August 10 you could be forgiven for thinking that the roly-poly funnyman might find the climb a little daunting.

After all, not only is he a plumpish sort of chap but it's only three years since he underwent a life-saving heart transplant.

But when I caught up with Eddie - best remembered as one half of Little and Large - the other day he made it clear that, post-operation, a few stairs are hardly of concern at all.

"A few years back I just couldn't have handled steps like that. But these days it's not a problem. I go to the gym a couple of times a week and I do a lot of walking. I'm fitter than I've been in years."

Eddie tells me that his heart disease became critical in early 2002. "I was doing panto in Hull and I could barely breath. It was awful."

The operation was a success but the once workaholic comic has cut down drastically on his performance schedule. Little and Large have gone their separate ways.

It must be strange for a man whose TV shows once attracted 15 million viewers, who toured the country playing packed theatres, to find himself playing little clubs.

"Everyone has their day and we had ours," he tells me. "It's like when we were starting out playing the working men's clubs. There'd be these old troupers who'd been stars of the music halls asking where the dressing rooms were. We'd be standing among a stack of beer crates saying 'This IS the dressing room'.

"They were used to something a bit grand, of course, but at the time we just accepted whatever we found."