MR Nice aka Howard Marks embarks on a new tour this autumn to tell his extraordinary story as one of the pioneers of international drug dealing.

More dangerous and more revealing than ever before, Howard will be recounting stories never previously heard from his life of espionage and drug smuggling. With ties stretching across Europe, the Middle East, East Asia and North America, Marks was a major figure in drugs and money laundering during the 1970s and 80s.

He began to deal during his post-graduate philosophy course at Oxford and soon was moving much larger quantities into Europe and America in the equipment of touring rock bands.

Howard had contact with organisations as diverse as the CIA, MI6, MI5, the IRA and the Mafia. During the mid 1980s he had 43 aliases, 89 phone lines and owned 25 companies trading throughout the world.

After many years and a world-wide operation by the Drug enforcement Agency, he was busted and sentenced to 25 years in prison at Terre Haute Penitentiary, Indiana, USA. He was released in April 1995 after serving seven years of his sentence.

Told with humour, charm and candour, Mr Nice is his own extraordinary story combined with multimedia footage spanning three decades, projecting both the fascinating story and the many faces of Howard Marks.

He appears at the Theatre Royal, St Helens on Tuesday 2 November (Tel:01744 756000) and Southport Theatre on Sunday 31 October (Tel:01704 540454).