Comedian, actor and presenter of the long-running radio show The News Huddlines

For much of his long career, it could be a little difficult for people to get an exact fix on Roy Hudd, who has died aged 83. What was he – a comedian, an author, a radio satirist, a serious actor, a soap star, an archivist, or a leading authority on British music-hall and variety entertainment?

Hudd was all of these, but saw himself primarily as a man born too late to fulfil his dream of life as an old-style variety comic, which is how he started out in the late 1950s at the bottom of bills topped by artists such as the comic Max Miller and the male impersonator Hetty King.

The panto king, who died on Sunday aged 83, was the last link back to the music hall era. His repertoire of gags was so ancient, some had Grade II preservation orders.