Lionel's not bowing out yet

Lionel Blair tells the Shropshire Star about his long career, Sammy Davis Jnr and Strictly Come Dancing.

"I'm a couch potato," chuckles Lionel Blair, as I interrupt his afternoon of mystery and suspense in front of the box – Diagnosis Murder, and Murder She Wrote.

"Hardly," I reply. For it is hard to imagine the trim Canadian-born star of stage and screen who first tap-danced his way into the hearts of British audiences sitting still.

Best known for being a team captain on eighties celebrity charades show Give Us A Clue and presenting game show Name That Tune, he has been one of the nation's best-loved entertainers for as long as anyone can remember.

"Give Us A Clue was one of the highlights. We did over 1,000 shows," he reminisces.

"I also loved Name That Tune . . and working with Sammy Davis Jnr, my best friend. He was the most wonderful entertainer. I remember one time I had to go over to Las Vegas to rehearse a show with Sammy. We had dinner and Frank Sinatra was there and Dean Martin, all of these amazing people."

Blair recently danced his way back onto our television screens as a guest star in Emmerdale, Peter Kay's Britain's Got The Pop Factor and in last year's Christmas special of Extras with Ricky Gervais.

And having now finished hosting a three-year nationwide tour of the dance show Simply Ballroom, the 77-year-old says he still has no plans for throwing in the towel just yet.

"I have worked with some fantastic people and I have had a lovely life and I hope it continues for a bit longer," he laughs.

"I would love to do some more acting. I just want to keep working. I love my work and I think it shows."

He has an impressive CV, which boasts working alongside artists including Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald and Liza Minnelli, not forgetting his Rat Pack pal Sammy Davis Jnr.

But he says the one thing which would have topped it all would have been to have met his idol Fred Astaire. "He had style, he had elegance, and each dance routine he did told a story."

Blair's first public performances in Britain were with his sister Joyce in London Underground Station shelters during the Second World War, and later as a munchkin in The Wizard of Oz at the Palladium.

Like most of his generation and those before him, Blair had to work his way up into the spotlight – unlike the new noughties celebrity, plucked from millions of wannabes searching for the ever elusive break by appearing on a reality TV and talent show.

One would think he might have joined the backlash, but no, Blair is a huge fan of the craze. "I think X Factor is just wonderful. I think Leona Lewis is fabulous and Will Young is fantastic. I also like Britain's Got Talent. We need talent shows to find new talent," he says.

But he does fall into the category of experts frustrated by the outsiders who occasionally win through competitions – such as might have been the case with former political journalist John Sergeant, before he this week sensationally quit the hit BBC TV show, Strictly Come Dancing.

"He should have done it two shows ago," laughs Blair, a guest this week on Claudia Winkleman's Strictly fan show, It Takes Two.

"He did his best and I think he did quite well, but really, you can't vote off somebody who is really going for it and learning and getting better and leave John in because he wasn't going to get any better. I think you saw the best of him, really.

"He was cute and amusing and fun, but as a dancer, I said: 'oh God, no' – but he kept staying in.

"And that is the British public for you, because they love losers.

"Yes, we do all love him, but that is not a competition, that is a popularity contest. I think he did the right thing and the noble thing."

By Sunita Patel