A Christmas portrait of Brucie

By Paul Kobrak Producer, Strictly Come Brucie

BBC Radio 4's Christmas Day portrait of evergreen entertainer Bruce Forsyth was a long time coming.

Bruce Forsyth has been a well-known face on TV for decades

The idea of celebrating a remarkable career - now in its eighth decade - was not outrageous, or even that original.

It was finding the right person to try and get under the skin of the man behind the icon.

But everything fell into place when journalist Paul Morley and I were recording an interview and he revealed himself to be a massive fan of Strictly Come Dancing.

I wondered whether Morley, who wrote for the notorious New Musical Express in its punk and post-punk heyday, might just be interested in this pet project of mine. His knees went positively weak at the suggestion.

So one sunny August morning, days before Bruce was about to start filming the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing, we found ourselves at a set of impressive wrought iron gates emblazoned with a big B and a big F for a meeting with the man himself.

'Most difficult show'

"I am very surprised," says Forsyth about fronting a primetime entertainment show at 80.

"When I was in the business as a young performer, it was a recognised fact that when you got to 60 you were out, because there'd be a new crop of comics coming up all the time, every 10 years or so."

And yet the BBC turned to Forsyth when it came to finding the right person to front its new show.

But he admits it's not necessarily an ideal format for him.

At one time I did have the power to insist on anything I wanted to do Bruce Forsyth

"Strictly Come Dancing is the most difficult show I've ever done. Even as a child of nine or 10 when I was doing competitions, I always had an audience in front of me that I could bounce off.

"All I've got in front of me here is a camera - so it is difficult to do a Bruce Forsyth performance at times."

He presented television shows when no-one really knew what that meant, when there were no rules.

And decades later, greeting the camera as if it's still a brand new thing, he's still going strong, while using much the same box of tricks.

"I've got a bit of a thing about this - why do they call it light entertainment? I call it heavy. Morecambe and Wise were heavy entertainment, with a lot of thought.

"Because we go on there and do it and it's all light and frothy, they think it's light - it isn't.

"Frankie Howerd wasn't light, he was heavy - nobody worried more about what he was going to do."

'Who knows'

Bruce first appeared on television before World War II, even before he turned professional at the age of 14 as Boy Bruce - The Mighty Atom, cracking jokes between the appearances of barely-clad chorus girls at the Windmill Theatre in London's Soho.

But his big break came with ITV's flagship programme Sunday Night at the London Palladium, before moving onto other entertainment classics including The Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and Bruce's Price is Right.

"There are so many other 'heavy' entertainment shows that I could have done and I didn't - my fault in a way because they were easy to do," he explains.

"I was probably a bit lazy - I should have insisted and at one time I did have the power to insist on anything I wanted to do.

The Generation Game was one of Forsyth's most popular shows

"I did start to do my one-man show which was good, but I wish I had more of those to look back on and say, 'Yes - it was a lovely stage of my career'.

"But it was all put on the back burner because I did too many game shows."

And now that the current series of Strictly has reached its conclusion, will it be Forsyth's last?

"It could be, who knows - I'll see how it feels next year. I thought last year may be it.

"Val Parnell of Sunday Night at the Palladium said to me when I was very worried after doing six weeks that I was running out of material, 'Don't worry you've got another 33, 34 shows - do them, forget them, do next week, forget it.

"And that's how I've regarded television ever since - you do it, good or bad, you forget it. So until I get to the end of this series, I'll see how I feel. But it's all very loose at the moment - that's the way I like it to be."

Strictly Come Brucie is on BBC Radio 4, Christmas Day at 1130 GMT.