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Have you got a favourite TOTP performance?
" 'Relax'."

What did you make of the controversy surrounding that particular song?
"Well I was always told - the only reason Mike Read made his little speech about it was because he had a lot of time on his hands leading up to a news bulletin, which was like half past something and he had 20 seconds to go, and he didn’t have enough time to do what we usually did and get his guitar out and sing 'Rubber Ball'. So he thought 'I’ve got to say something' and he launched into his damning. I don’t know if this is true or not and I don’t really care."

Was there genuine interest from the show's producers in the songs?
"Not really, because the records virtually picked themselves. X number of records that had gone up in the charts and there would only be 8 or something like that. Those would be the ones. Obviously there was some kind of room for movement, but we weren’t involved in making any of those decisions. We just turned up and I quite liked that. You would meet people who you would assume were complete knobheads who actually turned out to be quite nice. Sometimes it worked the other way as well!"

Is it fun to present?

In a nerve-wracking sort of way - yes!"

You and David Jensen took a different approach to presenting TOTP, didn't you?
Well I think basically neither of us really gave a toss about it in a sense. We didn’t see it as an important career move. I certainly didn’t - he probably did! So we rather took the mickey out of it. I used to enjoy doing it in a way, but only if I did it with him. We’d phone up and order costumes such as 17th century French court outfits and nobody would ever say - "What do you want to do that for?" They never questioned anything we did, which we found delightful. So it was always very funny, we always had an excellent time doing the programme."

Have you ever been starstruck?

"Invariably."

Have you ever embarrassed yourself on the show?
"Its an inevitable part of the process."


Has anyone in the audience ever said anything funny to you?
"No. But it’s worth pointing out that our hilarious ad-libs had been rehearsed twice in the course of the afternoon. So by the time you actually trotted it out, they became a bit glib and everyone has heard them before and of course all of the kids that were on the programme were desperate to be seen on TV so they really didn’t want us in the way. Me in particular - I was an obstruction to them - "Get out of the way fat boy, we want our mums and dads to see us on the screen."

What's the worst performance you've ever seen on the show?
"Something involving Pan's People or Legs & Co."

Who would you ban?

"No one."

What's your dream TOTP line up?

"Name any eight people or bands with no chance of ever being on there."

Any advice for someone who wants to be a presenter?
"Take tranquilisers."