Paul Merton, Simon Day, Richard Herring, Ed Byrne and Count Arthur Strong lead the comedy line-up for the first quarter of 2009 at Harrogate Theatre.

Have I Got News For You team captain Paul Merton presents his Silent Clowns show on April 27 at 7pm, when he combines his analysis of the silver screen’s silent-comedy icons with film footage of Charlie Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and Harold Lloyd.

The evening concludes with a screening of Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill Junior with live accompaniment by pianist Neil Brand.

Simon Day, from the BBC series The Fast Show and Harry And Paul, has his day on February 10 on his first solo stand-up tour, What A Fool Believes.

Richard Herring returns to Harrogate on March 16 with his 2008 Edinburgh Fringe show, The Headmaster’s Son, which looks back on his childhood embarrassments and wonders if he can blame his upbringing for his adult failures.

Irish comic Ed Byrne makes his Harrogate Theatre debut on March 25 in Different Class, his look at marriage, class and the youth of today. All three gigs start at 8pm.

Count Arthur Strong, from BBC Radio 4, transfers to the stage in The Man Behind The Smile on March 27 at 7.30pm. Created by English comedian Steve Delaney, this fictional character is an elderly, pompous, deluded, out-of-work thespian from the north of England, and in his new show he is determined to break back into television where he thinks he rightly belongs.

“This season’s shows reaffirm our commitment to bringing some of the very best comedy to Harrogate,” says communications manager Kevin Jamieson.

In addition, Yorkshire promoter Toby Clouston-Jones will continue to run the Hyena Comedy Club, Harrogate’s only monthly comedy club, at Harrogate Theatre throughout 2009.

In the first Hyena gig of the new year, Robin Ince visits Harrogate on January 26 at 8pm on his Bleeding Heart Liberal tour.

Ince will be questioning the wisdom of the self-proclaimed moral majority: “It’s a show about many things; Guantanamo Bay, meetings with fundamentalists, the media’s desire to dumb everyone down, and my TV fight with Vanessa Feltz,” he says.

“I’ll also be wrestling with some big questions that I’m hoping to find answers to. Will I now swing to the right just because I’ve had a baby? Can I justify a career veering from a night’s shouting about botched foreign policy to days spent on Richard and Judy’s sofa introducing bizarre internet clips?”

Robin, incidentally, organised a series of Christmas events last month entitled Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People, and they were so successful that the final night sold out the 3,500-seat Hammersmith Apollo, London. Each evening mixed science with stand-up, a big orchestra and guests such as Jarvis Cocker, Dara O’Briain, Mark Thomas, Stewart Lee and Tim Minchin.

• Tickets for Harrogate Theatre’s comedy nights can be booked on 01423 502116.