Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
The people of the north-east will tonight get the chance to be lectured by the senate-baiting, cigar-smoking, moustache-wearing MP for an inner-city east London seat - or "Gorgeous" George Galloway, as he is better known.
The Respect party's one and only MP will begin a nationwide tour, called The Mother of All One Man Shows, following in the footsteps of former Downing Street spin doctor Alastair Campbell and ex-cabinet minister Mo Mowlam.
However, George Galloway is not a sell-out - and that's official. This morning the venue, the Customs House in South Shields, said there were still a few tickets left.
Tonight's gig - ahead of a national tour in July - is billed as a chance for the powerful orator to outline his colourful Commons career before answering questions from the audience.
Publicising his tour with characteristic style this morning, at a press conference in Glasgow opposing the G8 summit at Gleneagles, Mr Galloway compared the leaders of the world's wealthiest nations to "hoodies".
He said: "These men in that hotel will not be wearing hoodies. They will not be stopped and searched.
"But they are the most dangerous men in the world, responsible for war after war raging around the world and responsible for an economic system which is the biggest mass killer the world has ever seen."
The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow said the right of activists to demonstrate outside the five-star hotel where world leaders will meet on Wednesday July 6 was "non-negotiable".
"That's our right, we will exercise it, we won't pay for it, we won't take out insurance against ourselves, we won't be denied."
