COMEDIAN and folk singer Richard Digance will take the stage at Otley Courthouse this month.

The versatile, veteran entertainer - who is also a playwright, poet and educator - celebrated 50 years in showbusiness in 2017.

He is now back on the road again doing what he loves best: telling stories, playing guitar and singing songs.

Born in Plaistow, Essex, Digance was inspired to give the entertainment industry a go after moving to Glasgow to study and seeing performances by Billy Connolly and Mike Harding.

Since then he has racked up a formidable list of career statistics including 4,000 live shows, 62 British tours, 14 books, three stage plays, 32 albums and nearly four million YouTube visits.

He has also had a rich and varied TV career dating back to his 1985 special for Thames TV, A Dabble With Digance, and beyond.

As a writer his first novel, Run Out In the Country, was published in 1983 and his autobiography, A Wealth of Comedy, followed in 1999.

He also composed the audio book music for Bill Bryson’s best-selling travelogue The Road to Little Dribbling, and each year kicks off the first set of the final day at the renowned Cropredy (folk) Festival.

Digance's Animal Alphabet poems meanwhile, which have been serialised by the BBC, are used as English Teaching Aids in 14 countries.

His awards include a BAFTAs TV Entertainer of the Year Award and the Gold Award from The British Academy of Composers.

Otley Courthouse is promising an evening of "wit, nostalgia and good fun" when he performs on Friday, April 20.

The show starts at 8pm and tickets cost £15.

They can be booked by visiting www.otleycourthouse.org.uk, calling (01943) 467466 or popping into the Courthouse, on Courthouse Street.