Mention the name Chris Needs and the word friendly instantly springs to mind.

Chris’ night-time BBC Wales radio show The Friendly Garden has a huge following across Wales, thousands of listeners having welcomed his radio voice into their homes for the best part of two decades.

“It was always looming for me to do it,” Chris says of his career, “As long as I was in front of an audience I didn’t care! When I started my very first show on the radio I knew this was for me! It clicked within a minute.”

Prior to joining Radio Wales in 1996, Port Talbot-raised Chris worked in Benidorm, Spain and Gibraltar. “I was always in nightclubs, theatres, pantomimes and cabaret shows I’ve always been a night bird and when this came along radio in the night it suited me so well,” he says.

Chris’s relationship with his listeners has always been a two-way friendship. When he became seriously ill due to a reaction to prescribed drugs he found it was his audience who were there for him. “I lost 7 stone in 8 weeks. They all wrote to me came to visit me, they were incredible all the way.”

Two years later and two stone heavier Chris got his life back and was grateful of the support of his friends and listeners. “It’s a friendly garden,” he says of the weeknight show,”We do share each others problems and if people just want a good old chat its there. I love it!”

Now fans get a chance to see Chris in person, his live show visits Newport Riverfront next week featuring him performing his hilarious stand up routine, along with music and songs from special guests, opera diva “Dame” Mandy Starr and Country and Western star Rob Allen.

“I’ve fallen off the stage how many times I don’t know,” says Chris of his show, ”It's good clean family fun, a lot of nonsense and valleys humour – it's lovely. We all sing, we do the garden anthem and I chat to the audience face to face as if I’m on the radio. You think “Oh hang on I know this woman’s voice and put a face to her!”

The concert which takes place at The Riverfront on September 14 will raise funds for Chris’ Hospital appeal set up by his late mother. For more details contact the Newport Riverfront Theatre on 01633 656757.