HULL singer Joe Longthorne is back on the road after surgery last year when struck by cancer for a second time.

Tomorrow, showman Joe plays the Grand Opera House, York, in a 7.30pm show rearranged from last year when he underwent a life-saving, ten-hour operation in July to remove a tumour in his throat.

Joe, who will turn 60 this spring, had earlier had a bone-marrow transplant in 2006 that brought to an end 20 years of fighting leukaemia. As he lay in his bed in a Preston hospital last summer, he sang Danny Boy only ten hours after the operation to reassure himself he could still sing, even though doctors had advised him not to talk when he came round from the surgery.

The Yorkshireman made his stage comeback at the New Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham on January 22 and his doctors have recommended he should still take it easy and not do too many shows back to back as this could jeopardise his recovery. Consequently, he cut down his performances last month from seven to three to ease himself back into working and singing and touring again after such a major operation, instead of going full steam ahead from the off.

“The prognosis is good, I see my specialist once a month but it’s up to me now to get up on stage again,” Joe has said. Rationing his performances is the pragmatic way forward, as his website acknowledges. “We are sure,” it says, “that this is for the best, as the main man’s health is more important and we don’t want anything happening to that golden voice that we all know and love.”

Joe, born into a family of Romany travellers in Hull, busked on the port’s streets as a teenager and first caught the eye on Junior Showtime at 14. He later won Search For A Star with his singing impersonations and secured his own television series. Dame Shirley Bassey once paid him the tribute that “Joe can do me better than I can do myself”.

On May 31, he will mark his 60th birthday by performing at the London Palladium. In the meantime, he will leave behind his Blackpool home to return to Yorkshire soil tomorrow to sing in York.

Tickets are still available on 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york