REMEMBER Elton John in a huff in that Tantrums And Tiaras documentary, saying how he took his tennis very seriously?

Likewise, Clive James, television presenter, chat-show host, essayist, poet, critic, wit and raconteur, is "very serious" about writing lyrics for singer and songwriter Pete Atkin. The difference between Elton and Clive is that the Australian is rather a dab hand at his extra-curricular activity.

So much so that Clive and Pete are on the road in their second show since re-uniting for Together At Last Again at the Edinburgh Fringe. On Thursday, their Words And Wisdom tour visits York Theatre Royal, where Clive last played in his Cambridge Footlights days. When? "Oh, about 35 years ago," he says. "I like York, I'm a big admirer of the cathedral."

In those Footlights days, Clive and Pete - now a BBC Radio 4 producer - went on to write a series of albums together. "He used to write lyrics as well, so I just bombarded him until we eventually starting working together," Clive says

Through the wonders of the internet, interest in those albums has been revived, so much so that the records have been reprinted on CD and the duo have recorded an album of new material, Winter Spring.

"This new one I'm really proud of. It's in the shops next month, but you can get it on the internet already," says Clive.

"Now you don't really need the record industry but you did back then. No one knew what to do with us, no one knew where to put them in the record shops. That's why we didn't sell. So we had to do something else for the next 25 years."

Clive, 64 this year, left our TV screens two years ago, but he is busier than ever, doing what he loves most. Writing. "I'm very serious about my lyrics, and about my poetry. I take the lyrics very seriously," he says again, to emphasise the point even more.

"A lot of new material got written on the tour last year; I got back into the groove writing on the road, travelling in the van, and I thought 'Like wow man, this is it!'. I started doing new lyrics again."

Words And Music is half Clive, half Pete, with the Australian providing typically caustic anecdotes and poems and the Brit performing acoustic songs, some serious, others humorous on themes ranging from jazz pianists to gangsters.

Clive is thriving away from the television studio.

"I think I got sick of the celebrity business. It's eventually isolating, and I was always trying to undo that on my TV shows. TV kept me too busy in the wrong way: I was in the office six days for every 30 minutes on air."

Clive James and Pete Atkin, Words And Music, York Theatre Royal, Thursday, May 29, 7.45pm. Box office: 01904 623568. Also Harrogate Theatre, Wednesday, May 28, 7.30pm, 01423 502116.

Updated: 10:07 Friday, May 23, 2003