When Squeeze were headlining Madison Square Garden in 1982, Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook were heralded as the best British songwriting partnership since Lennon and McCartney. Emerging in pyjamas from a double bed at the start of tonight’s show, the two 60-year-olds look more like a rejuvenated Morecambe and Wise.

This is their first tour as a duo in 20 years, yet the Eeyore-like Difford and Tigger-ish Tilbrook remain one of pop’s best double acts. The years fall away as they open with Take Me I’m Yours, their 1978 debut single that demonstrates that Squeeze may have emerged from the post-punk new wave but they had far more in common with the Kinks than with the Sex Pistols.

Their dynamic remains unaltered. The unkempt, youthful Tilbrook is the audaciously nimble guitarist who exudes joie de vivre, while the wordsmith Difford is his more reserved foil. The pair coalesce superbly on kitchen-sink dramas such as Is That Love, a glorious vignette of passion surviving the drip-drip-drip of domestic drudgery.

It’s clear just how much they need each other. Difford’s solo material such as Fat As a Fiddle can veer uncomfortably near to comedic Richard Digance territory, while Tilbrook songs such as Chat Line Larry lack Difford’s eye for acute lyrical detail. Yet their 1981 single Tempted remains a brilliantly moving, deeply anguished meditation on the pained guilt of adultery.

They close with Cool for Cats’ deadpan narrative of south London delinquency, and after an encore of Labelled With Love and Goodbye Girl’s sharp one-liners and barbed regrets, the venue rises as one. It’s a fitting tribute to British pop’s Morecambe and Wise and the many self-deprecating, life-affirming songs wot they wrote.

• At Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, on 19 November. Tickets: 024-7652 4524