Lionel Blair

[www.doyouremember.co.uk]

'Give us a Clue' with Una Stubbs was Lionel Blair's claim to fame. Lionel was one of the team captains on the television show 'Give us a Clue' from 1979 until the early 90's. He took on many roles of television and theatre and many people knew him for his tap & chat dancing. Lionel was born in Canada in 1931 but grew up in London.

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[darren]

Re: Lionel Blair

Funny enough he took part in a programme where he lived in a house with other people like derek jameson,snd liz smith.
they where there for a week surrounded by everything from 1975.
like wallpaper furniture,newspapers with all that was happening at that time.
it had quite a big effect on him.

[Trickyvee]

Re: Lionel Blair

I used to love Give us a clue when I was little with Lionel Blair and Una Stubbs and I think Michael Aspel was presenting it then.

I had a very weird WTF? Lionel Blair moment once. At work about 10 years ago someone came in and said Lionel Blair was tied up in the boot of a car in a public carpark across the road! Apparently it was for some show. I never went to investigate.

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

Funny enough he took part in a programme where he lived in a house with other people like derek jameson,snd liz smith.
they where there for a week surrounded by everything from 1975.
like wallpaper furniture,newspapers with all that was happening at that time.
it had quite a big effect on him.

It was called "The Young Ones" and was seen in around 2010 - not to be confused with that early to mid 1980s BBC 2 sitcom of course.

Blair was indeed give all the stinkers by Parkinson on Give us a Clue - one had to feel sorry for Lionel when he had to do a 16 word phrase in under two minutes, but he was a professional and he did it longer than anyone else don't forget!

Of course, I cannot help smiling when I think of the Harp Lager "Lionel Blair Cut" Advert with Brian Conley as a hairdresser threatening to give his worst to a customer. Cue our hero (Blair) at the end of the advert with a Mohican style haircut on his head, which was done with a "Goodhew" skull cap over his real hair and then identical slightly-ginger coloured hair set in a weird way on top of that.

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

Also, I loved that honourable mention given in Hale and Pace's song about ginger people - "if Lionel Blair had dyed his hair, would he be a ginger beer?"

[Mulletino]

Re: Lionel Blair

Also, I loved that honourable mention given in Hale and Pace's song about ginger people - "if Lionel Blair had dyed his hair, would he be a ginger beer?"

A bit of rhyming slang there which i'm guessing doesn't get used much nowadays.

I always remember flared trousers being referred to as Lionel Blairs or Lionels.

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

That's right - "get your Lionels on - you're going to a 1970s disco". I suppose that if he hadn't became famous, they would have eventually been referred to in Cockney Rhyming Slang as Tony's, but not until the 1990s anyway.

Blair himself saw something like that on a greetings card and he enjoyed the honourable mention!

[zabadak]

Re: Lionel Blair

Lionel was also mentioned in the wonderful "God Gave Us Life" from Half Man, Half Biscuit's Back In The DHSS album!

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

Who hasn't been given an honourable mention on a Half Man, Half Biscuit album?

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

A bit of rhyming slang there which i'm guessing doesn't get used much nowadays.

Good point - one of the tabloids, probably The Sun speculated in the late 1980s whether Lionel Blair was, shall we say, on the wrong side, so to speak. And the gestures that he was famous for, probably didn't help him too much either.

[zabadak]

Re: Lionel Blair

"Wrong" side?

[George 1978]

Re: Lionel Blair

"Wrong" side?

You know, they thought he was... er… gay.