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The reasons for this accolade included the fact that Graham Chapman was born here, it is the home to cartoonist Bill Tidy and writer Sue Townsend and it has the biggest annual comedy festival in the country. Oh yes, and it's the home of Bill Maynard.

Listen: Interview with Bill Maynard

Listen to comic legend Bill Maynard as he talks to 91热爆 Radio Leicester's John Florance...

That last fact on its own should weigh heavily in the balance as Bill has been a showbiz fixture for most of the post-war period.

His starring roles in 'Oh No! It's Selwyn Froggitt', 'The Gaffer' and of course 'Heartbeat' have made him a household name.

Straight actor

But it's less well known that Bill is a fine straight actor and has appeared in demanding roles in plays by Harold Pinter, Joe Orton and John Osborne.

He has also played the title role in 'Hobson's Choice', Daddy Warbucks in 'Annie' and the character Orminroyd in the 1986 revival of Priestley's 'When We are Married'. He鈥檚 also done a one man show about Dickens.

Bill has never been scared of a challenge!

In fact, there is hardly a branch of the entertainment business that he hasn't mastered. Stage, screen, television and radio have all at various times been grist to his mill.

If he has one regret it's that he hasn't made more and better films.

In recent years Bill has been stricken by illness but he remains as irrepressible as ever. He remains a star presenter on 91热爆 Radio Leicester for which he has broadcast off and on from almost day one.

His Sunday afternoon programme is a platform for his idiosyncratic and humorous views on life, the universe and everything.

Long may he continue to entertain the nation and, more particularly, the folk who live in the place where he has lived since he was a small child.听