The singing and acting, which started together at the end of the sixties, still form equal parts of his career. He released the book of one verse poems Shorts For All Occasions in May 2006. October 2005 saw the release of God's Own County featuring nineteen songs from or about Lancashire. In 2004/5 he could be heard in the VOICES trailer for the BBC, acted in Heartbeat and Fat Friends, released a new CD of musical monologues called Amblethwaite 'Appenings and read another series of very silly customs on the Mark and Lard show for BBC Radio One. He ended 2003 by playing cousin Albert in the Xmas episode of The Royal and presenting at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards in London, having released a new CD of his own monologues Monologology. 2002 saw a BBC Radio 1 Award for a previous CD Fairly Truthful Tales, the completion of the CD remastering of all the early LPs, and the Dick Whittington pantomime as Captain Codseye. Television appearances included both series of Peter Kay's Phoenix Nights (C4) where, as Dodgy Eric, he delivered a bucking bronco, then a phallic bouncy castle. 2001 included Steve Coogan's film The Parole Officer, together with his own programmes on BBC Radio Lancashire and a series of concerts with the Oldham Tinkers. He played in Victoria Wood's Xmas Special on 25 Dec, and earlier in 2000 he was the prisoner in a TV advert for Walls' Sausages, was murdered in Harbour Lights in May, and in June released his eleventh album Magnificent Monologues, a CD of all the most famous ones including The Lion and Albert & The Battle 0f Hastings - with piano accompaniment. In 1999 he was the Rev. Marvin Winstanley in Coronation Street, then to Norway for a lottery commercial. Guest spot on the Houghton Weavers' Xmas Tour ended the year, with two Xmas episodes of Dinnerladies.

He began by singing in folk clubs, and then became involved with documentaries produced at the new and dynamic Octagon theatre in Bolton. This carried on into plays, and then the Ken Campbell Roadshow, where the acting and singing combined. Here he wrote such gems as the Ballad of Knocking Nelly. From here, as well as singing all the while, he appeared in numerous Alan Bennett films, including Day Out, Afternoon Off, and Me, I'm afraid of Virginia Woolf. Then came a steady trail of appearances in tv programmes and adverts, including a prestigious Guinness TV campaign and a Royal Command Performance during Jubilee year.

Back to the Octagon in the 90s for Waiting for Godot with Mike Harding, and in Road, at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester. TV appearances include Last of the Summer Wine, Coogan's Run, Asphalt in Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, and on film the union official in Brassed Off. 1997 saw him in a radio play, and in Emmerdale as Barry Clegg, the rocket building husband of Zak Dingle's girlfriend, Lisa. Then Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs at Southport, Cold Feet, Cops, and Northern Broadside's Passion Play. 1998 saw him playing The Limestone Cowboy at the Belgrade in Coventry.