Kumars star Sanjeev Bhaskar has been awarded an OBE in the New Year honours list.

Comic-turned actor Robbie Coltrane gets the same honour, while  veteran entertainer Bruce Forsyth is awarded the CBE.

And Roy Barraclough, who starred with Les Dawson as a gossip-mongering housewife before becoming Alec Gilroy in Coronation Street will be given the MBE.

Barraclough, 70, said he was stunned, adding: ‘I think Les would have been absolutely chuffed for me. He would have been very pleased if he was still with us.’

Forsyth, 77, said he was ‘quick-stepping with delight’ at his award for services to entertainment.

He said: ‘I can put this all down to having done Have I Got News for You.  It proved to everybody that I'm still a performer and still reasonably funny.’

He added that he would celebrate by dancing with his wife. ‘And if she won’t dance with me then I’ll dance with my alsatian dog.’

Bhaskar’s honour comes less than a month after he became a father at 41, as his wife, Goodness Gracious Me co-star Meera Syal, has just given birth to a baby boy.