Due to popular demand Dr Hook featuring Ray “Eye Patch” Sawyer are back on tour with gigs on the south coast.

They play The Bournemouth International centre next Friday and |then The Brook, Southampton on Saturday, March 21.

Dr Hook & the Medicine Show, shortened in 1975 to Dr Hook, was an American rock band, formed around Union City, New Jersey.

They enjoyed considerable commercial success in the 70s with hit singles including Sylvia’s Mother, The Cover of Rolling Stone, A Little Bit More and When You’re in Love with a Beautiful Woman.

In addition, to their own material, Dr Hook and the Medicine Show performed songs written by the poet, Shel Silverstein.

The band had eight years of regular chart hits, in both the US and the UK, and greatest success with their later material, as Dr Hook.

When told by a club owner that they needed a name to put on a poster in the window of his establishment, Cummings made a sign: “Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show: Tonic for the Soul”.

The “Hook” name was inspired by Sawyer’s eyepatch and a reference to “Captain Hook” of the Peter Pan fairytale, though, humorously, because Captain Hook was neither a doctor nor wore an eyepatch.

The “medicine show” and “doctor” (referring to the shows common in the 19th century) were intended as tongue-in-cheek support for drug abuse.

Tickets: BIC: Call the BH Live Tickets on 0844 576 3000*, book online at bic.co.uk or visit the BIC box office in person.

The Brook, Southampton: Box Office: 023 8055 5366 Website: the-brook.com