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Stephen Fretwell announces 2022 UK and Ireland tour

The 12-date February/March tour will kick off in Belfast and round up in London

By Hollie Geraghty

Stephen Fretwell performs 'Oval' in a studio, wearing headphones and singing into a microphone
Stephen Fretwell. (Photo: YouTube).

Stephen Fretwell has announced the dates for a UK and Ireland tour in 2022.

The 12-date tour will kick off in Belfast on February 24 and finish up at London’s Grand Junction on March 11.

The singer-songwriter will also perform in Limerick, Dublin, Brighton, Cambridge, Cardiff, Hull, Liverpool, Newcastle, York and Hebden Bridge.

Earlier this month Fretwell rounded up a UK tour in Glasgow supporting his comeback album ‘Busy Guy’.

Returning with his first album in 13 years, he also released the single ‘Oval’ in March.

“I think it is a song about marriage, the actuality of it, the responsibility of it, and the gamble,” he said of the track (via NME).

“When my girlfriend was pregnant with our first son, we moved to a flat near the Oval in London. As our marriage fell apart a few years ago, it was this simple song that was the only thing I had to stick in the ground and push on with making some new music.”

Tickets for the 2022 tour go on sale at 10am GMT this Thursday (December 2), and can be purchased here.

Find the full 2022 tour schedule below.

FEBRUARY

24 – Voodoo, Belfast
25 – Dolans, Limerick
26 – Whelans, Dublin
28 – Komedia, Brighton

MARCH

1 – Portland Arms, Cambridge
3 – Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff
4 – Social, Hull
5 – Arts Club, Liverpool
7 – The Cluny, Newcastle
8 – The Crescent, York
9 – The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
11 – Grand Junction, London

Fretwell is known for writing ‘Run’, the theme song for ‘Gavin & Stacey’, but recently explained that he initially turned down the request.

“I was like, ‘No, no, I don’t wanna do that’,” he said in an interview with the BBC in July. 

“Then about two months later it [Gavin & Stacey] came out and it had the song on it. I saw [publisher friend] Joe a few nights later and I said to him, ‘Hey that song is on that show’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it’s great isn’t it?’

“I was like, ‘I told you not to put that on that show’. And he was like, ‘No, you said you wanted it on’, and he was smirking at me,” Fretwell added. “And… it’s the best thing anyone’s ever done for me.”