ANGELA Rippon’s dulcit tones have become familiar across the country thanks to her long career at the BBC — and, of course, that high-kicking performance on the Morecambe And Wise Show.

So when Raymond Gubbay producers were looking for a compere for their evening of very British music, We’ll Meet Again, the broadcasting legend was a natural choice.

“I love music, so I love doing things like this,” says Angela. “I get the best seat in the house because I sit on the side of the stage with all sorts of amazing orchestras and I have watched all sorts of amazing performers, singers and dancers.”

She adds that she particularly enjoys working with a live audience because so much of what she does sees her in front of a camera or on the end of a microphone, rather than interacting with large groups of “real” people.

She says: “To walk out on to a stage and see 2,000 people and know they are there to have a good time, that’s a great feeling.”

Angela says she loves a wide range of music, from opera such as Puccini and Mozart through the classical composers such as Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Brahms, and more modern writers such as George Gershwin and Cole Porter.

“I think good music is anything that moves you to get up and dance or sit down and cry,” she says, adding that listening to music regularly produces tears, although not always of sadness.

“Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto Number Two always does,” Angela syas. “There are some songs that just catch at you and strike a chord.”

Having trained as a classical ballerina until the age of 17, the urge to get up and dance is also strong. “I get asked to do a lot of dancing shows,” she says. “The last time I danced? That’s easy to remember — it was yesterday.”

Angela, who hosts a slot called Rippon’s Britain on The One Show, says the secret to the continuing popularity of the music from the ’40s is simply the way it makes people feel.

“All that feelgood music that was around in the ’40s that really kept people’s spirits up,” she says. “For those of us that weren’t there at the time, you have to put it in context — Hollywood was still turning out films, people were still going to the cinema and going out dancing — there were a lot of things going on to take people out of that moment of stress and anxiety and remind them that there is another side to life.”

With economic gloom and political doom all around, hopefully this uplifting show will have the same effect now.

* We’ll Meet Again is at the Bridgewater Hall, in Manchester, on Sunday, October 9. For tickets, £12.50 to £36.50, visit bridgewater-hall.co.uk or ring 0161 907 9000.