The ubiquitous role occupied by optical fibres in modern photonic systems has steadily stimulated research to realize slow and fast light devices directly in this close-to-perfect transmission line. This potentially offers the key advantage of a direct and flexible integration in most existing optical systems. The recent progress in the realization of optically-controlled delays in optical fibres, under normal environmental conditions and in the high-transparency spectral region, has paved the way towards real applications based on slow and fast light. This presentation shows the state-of-the-art research in this fascinating field and the possible outcomes in the near future.