Folk stars Show of Hands are back to three again as Miranda Sykes returns on tour which is at New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth

But on their current tour, which calls in at New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth on Friday, November 18, Miranda is reunited with founders Steve Knightley and Phil Beer.

‘It's been quite moving actually,’ says Steve of finally playing alongside the double-bassist again. ‘The audience have been so welcoming to her.’

Show of Hands’ autumn 2021 tour had been planned as a four-person outing, with percussionist Cormac Byrne also joining them on stage. But harsh economic realities led to it being just the founding duo.

‘We felt bad that we couldn't do the tour – we were in the terrible position of possibly going bankrupt. Once you commit to the PA and the hotels and everything else, it's about 250 people just to break even, that's before Phil and I make anything. It was a very, very tough thing to do and we felt very bad about it, but we're here now and we've got through it and we're able to carry on touring.’

And he adds of the Covid-enforced halt to touring: There was no government help for the likes of us – we were almost expendable. It's been quite emotional to get back into it, and I imagine there will be moments like that throughout the autumn.’

This tour will see the trio adopting a new format for the shows.

‘We're each doing four individual items,’ explains Steve, ‘something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue – but all the blues songs we’ll be doing together, and then in the second half it will be all the songs everyone wants to hear.

‘The first half will change every night. For something old, it will be something I haven't played in 20 years, then I'll do a song no one's played before, then it will be a cover – it might be Springsteen, it might be Dylan, we'll change them, but I imagine the blues songs will stay the same because we'll be joined by the other two for those. It's nice to have a theme for the first set like that, It keeps us interested.’

Show of Hands were at Wickham Festival back in the summer, and while the duo played on Saturday night, Steve performed the specially written Song For Wickham with a local choir to open main stage proceedings on Friday. He was invited to write the song by the local parish council to write a song marking the town’s 500th anniversary.

‘That went really well,’ Steve recalls, ‘I've got good connections with the town now – I'm a bit of a local hero,’ he laughs. ‘I was quite chuffed to be asked, actually. I spent a few years of my life just over the hill in Portsmouth so it was nice to go back and try to filter in those memories of the chalk downlands just the other side of the hill, and people were quite moved. It got a good reaction.’

It’s not yet been recorded, but Steve adds: ‘It will be on the next album. I'll probably go back to Wickham and get the choir to add their vocals if I can.’

It is three years since their last studio album – Battlefield Dance Floor – and as alluded to above, Steve says there is a new one in the works.

‘The problem you have from an economic point of view is that album sales are so low now – it used to be a third of our income, it's less than 10 per cent now – so the idea of going in a studio and spending £10-15,000, let alone a few thousand on the artwork and everything else is now redundant, but at the end of the day, people do like the sound that Phil and I and Miranda make unadorned, so we will probably make a virtue of that, do something very stripped back and almost what you hear on the night. No one ever complains that it's underproduced!

‘I've got half a dozen songs – I'm not crazily prolific, but we'll have enough for an album. There's always a couple of folk songs and a cover song to supplement that, so we've got enough for an album.’

And the New Theatre Royal has a special place in the band’s affections too. They were the first musical act to play there after it reopened in 2015 following extensive renovations.

‘I love it there,’ Steve adds, ‘It's possibly my favourite venue, it's the old music hall set up with the balconies and it's a dream to play in.’

While Steve may love our New Theatre Royal, the band are also booked back in at The Royal Albert Hall on April 10 next year.

‘That will be our sixth time in nearly 25 years,’ says Steve. ‘People were asking us to do it – I don't know if we specifically said we'd never do it again after the last one, but we're calling this one The Last Post because it probably will be the last one. But never say never...’

Tickets £36.50. Doors 7.30pm. Go to newtheatreroyal.com.