LIONEL Blair reckons he has tapped into another success story with dance show Simply Ballroom, yet he admits he had initial doubts.

"I was at home having a cup of coffee when my agent rang and said, Are you sitting down? They're going to do a stage show called Simply Ballroom; it's not a competition, it's a celebration of dance and they want you to present it'," the veteran hoofer, actor and showman recalls.

"The producer and director came round that afternoon, and I thought, I'd love to do it but I can't think how they're going to do a show like this' and I kept saying to my agent, I don't know how this is going to work'."

The answer came on the first day of rehearsals, and Lionel is now lapping up every chance to host the dance showcase, including Sunday evening's visit to the Grand Opera House, York.

"At the opening rehearsal, I sat and watched the first number and I said to myself Oh my God, they've got it', and now I think it's the most enjoyable show I've ever done. It's wonderful," says Lionel, who complements his introductions with his own routine in the show, each night picking out a member of the audience to dance a waltz with him.

Simply Ballroom features a dozen international dance champions performing the foxtrot, waltz, quick step, jive, tango, rumba, samba and pasa doble.

"What I've found so wonderful is that they're so disciplined. England's footballers could learn something from it," Lionel says, although he stresses that personality has its place too. "There's one boy in the cast who is the most marvellous dancer but has no discipline, but boy can he dance."

The success of BBC1's Strictly Come Dancing has revived an old-fashioned, elegant form of dancing that Lionel never stopped championing, even if he feared it had had its days.

"It's unbelievable," he says. "For 12 years I did Ayckbourn plays, Stoppard, farces, because I never saw this form of dancing coming back. But it's like the success of pantomime. The jokes don't change in panto and the only thing that's changed in ballroom is the dresses. They're no longer tea cosies and the dancers no longer make them for themselves.

"For Simply Ballroom, we have a wonderful wardrobe mistress, Jane Dixon, who has done them for the show. Do you realise, the average ballroom dress would cost £2,000 now, and you see those poor parents re-mortgaging their house so that their kids can become stars?"

Ballroom dancing was in the doldrums, but not any more. "For a while it was a joke; those old dresses and the numbers on the back, but it's such a shame that it stopped, and do you know who was to blame?"

No, Lionel, who was to blame? John Travolta? "No, no, he danced together, man and woman. Wonderful!" he says. "No, Chubby Checker was the reason. Thanks to The Twist, people no longer touched on the dance floor; they just wiggled their bums, and the touching stopped.

"The last waltz was the chance to pull, and you couldn't pull if you hadn't danced, because no matter how a man looks, if he can dance, he can pull a girl."

The waltzing will go on. At 74, Lionel has a new television show in the pipeline but please forgive him his reticence to say more. "I've done the pilot, but I can't tell you for which channel, and I can't tell you what the show's called," he says.

Oh you tease, Lionel, you tease. Just like dancing the waltz.

Simply Ballroom, Grand Opera House, York, Sunday, 7.45pm. Tickets: £19.50 and £18 on 0870 606 3595.