HENRY Blofeld and Peter Baxter, two cornerstones of Test Match Special for so many summers, are swapping the commentary box and cricket grounds for tales of life beyond the boundary in Rogues On The Road.

After touring their first show for three years, Blofeld, 76, and Baxter, 67, are doing the rounds with a brand new one, full of stories from the travels of the Beeb broadcasters.

They promise "even more wonderful and occasionally outrageous reminiscences and anecdotes from two extensive careers spent broadcasting around the globe in search of sporting excellence", a promise that will draw a full house to Helmsley Arts Centre tonight in the tour's last week.

Bastions of BBC Radio Three's Test Match Special, with more than 80 years in the commentary box and touring the world between them, Blofeld and Baxter bond like the best opening partners at the crease. Blofeld, he of the "My dear old thing" exclamation, remains a distinctive voice in the new broadband age of TMS, while adding ITV’s The Chase and BBC’s Room 101 to his repertoire; Baxter was in charge of Test Match Special for 34 years, a schoolmaster trying to keep his errant students in line.

Rogues On The Road is the story of "good men behaving badly". "It's all about the dramas, the travelling, the airports, the birds and the booze," says Henry, with familiar joy in his raconteur's voice. "It's anecdotal comedy; it's not about the cricket, though it has the background of the cricket, but there's no cricket in the show until we open it up for questions from the floor."

The format seems to be working. "Ladies have come up and said they'd been reluctant to come to the show, but they were glad they did," says Henry.

Does the show have something of the flavour of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, a 1938 satire on sensationalist journalism and foreign correspondents? "I'm not standing in any way to be compared with Evelyn Waugh," says the old-school figure of Henry Blofeld. "I'm very much ham-fisted and down the order from him when it comes to stories."

He delights in the show being called Rogues On The Road. "Am I a rogue? Oh heavens, yes. I'm naughty with a capital N, but nothing worse than naughty. I've always kicked over the traces, but always cheerfully and nicely," says Henry. "It's not what you do, but how you do it. It's not what you say, but how you say it. It's all enormous fun and I laugh like mad.

"I don't think people are shocked by what we say in the show, but I think they don't know what to expect."

His commentary and newspaper reporting skills have taken Henry around the world, giving him a stock of tales both during play and after stumps. "I've been doing Test Match Special since 1972 and there's been quite a lot of water under the bridge. At times it's just trickled by, but then it's gathered pace again!"

Henry is both a bon viveur and born raconteur, which makes his cricket commentaries stand out. "I think I'm a good storyteller and that helps with the commentaries as that's a gift you either have or you haven't, which is why I believe you must paint the scene at a Test match," he says. "People want to know what I'm looking at and they want to have fun when they're listening. Cricket is only one of many things in life and you mustn't take it too seriously."

Such a view might not find trenchant Test Match Special analyst and summariser Geoffrey Boycott nodding in agreement. "No-one takes cricket more seriously than a Yorkshireman. For Geoffrey, it's the law and the Holy Grail," says Henry.

By comparison, Blofeld and Baxter are on the same page of the proverbial cricket scorecard. "We've always worked very well together and everyone can see that in the shows we do, so we play equal parts, interrupting each other and I don't pull him unless he says something happened in Leeds when in fact it was Bradford," says Henry.

"What we do really well in our show is irony and having the ability to laugh at ourselves. Every cricket commentator should be able to do that; it's something that Brian Johnston did so well.

"I think I'm now the last of the old-school commentators, and they can still afford to have one, but not more than that. Everything evolves; cricket commentary is very much more conversational between the commentator and the summariser, who now comes in at all times, when it used to be just at the end of the over, or when a wicket fell or a century had been scored. When I commentate, I want to commentate."

You sense that Henry is not wholly enamoured of the new ways. "Some get too bogged down in theory, whereas Jonathan Agnew and Vic Marks get the balance right," he says. "Test Match Special is company in the house, a comfortable voice when doing the housework, with the cricket thrown in!"

Henry, however, would not wish to disparage any of his commentary-team compadrés in Rogues On The Road. "I never talk about other commentators or tell stories that are in any way unkind," he says. "We're all playing a team game and we've worked together for a long time. We're very lucky to be part of Test Match Special and you feed off everyone's strengths, not their weaknesses."

Blofeld and Baxter, Rogues On The Road, Helmsley Arts Centre, tonight at 7.30pm; sold out.