A BBC Tees radio presenter is making his debut at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival next week in a show that tells of his strange love for the sitcom Last of the Summer Wine.

Bob Fischer, who presents the Tees afternoon show, will appear as Compo in the show Summer Winos which he has co-written with North-East film-maker Andrew Smith, who appears as Clegg. A member of the audience will be invited to join them on stage as Foggy to complete the trio who starred in the sitcom which peaked in the 1980s.

“I used to watch it as a kid in Yarm with my parents and gran in the front room and I loved it,” says Bob. “I think that there’s a childlike quality to Compo that I identified with, and it was the closest I got to seeing my surroundings on TV – Yarm was then a country town full of old farmers.”

Last of the Summer Wine was first screened in 1973 and finished 295 episodes later in 2010. “Andrew and I watched the final episode together with a few beers and a bit of cake at my house, and as it finished, he said: ‘Do you fancy watching every episode from the beginning?’, and I said ‘yes’.”

They started blogging about each episode, summerwinos.co.uk, and gained a cult following which grew as they travelled to Holmfirth, in west Yorkshire where the series was filmed, to discover locations, characters and even actors.

Now the blog has blossomed into a stage show, which has so far been seen at the Waiting Room in Eaglescliffe and Sid’s Cafe in Holmfirth.

“It isn’t stand-up comedy, although I have definitely heard a few laughs coming at our previews, but it is a show about what Last of the Summer Wine has meant to us and what we have learned about British social history through watching it,” says Bob, who describes himself as “an unashamed TV geek”.

“It starts off incredibly dark, with three men in their fifties written off by society, living in the post-industrial Yorkshire countryside which is scarred by derelict mills – today men in their fifties are considered to be in the prime of their lives.”

Summer Winos is a free show each afternoon from August 12 to 17 at the Bannermans venue in Edinburgh. “Phill Jupitus is appearing a few hours before us each day and he’s a comedian I really respect, so it will be nerve-racking, but I’m looking forward to it,” says Bob.