STANLEY Baxter is just ten seconds into the phone conversation when he makes an announcement.

“I’ve decided I won’t come out to lunch for our chat,” says from his home in London’s Highgate. Drat. Hopes of a chat with the comedy legend in the build up to his 90th birthday are scuppered.

But it’s not a total surprise. Stanley isn’t going all Norma Desmond on me, not at all. In recent times the former television, film and variety theatre star hasn’t been leaving his house much at all.

He has been confined to his large art deco style home thanks to two knee replacements and a spine that’s more worn than his all-time favourite biography (Moss Hart’s poignant and very funny Act One). Yet, just as the news is being digested, with impeccable timing he adds, “I’ve decided we should go out to dinner this evening instead. “I don’t celebrate birthdays, as such. But I guess, like the Queen, I have made it to this age so a couple of G&Ts and a dinner are in order.”

Great news. And six hours later at his house, as the doorbell is being rung, the ice is frosting the glasses ready for the tea-time G&Ts to be poured.

Upstairs in his two million pound house Stanley looks great in blue shirt and cream trousers. He sits down, clicks glasses and cracks a joke that must be older than he is. “I wake up, grab the newspaper and check the obituaries,” he chuckles. “If I’m not listed, I get up.”

He doesn’t swim three times a week anymore. In fact, he doesn’t drive now. But the man who built part of his career on pastiching Hollywood cinema still goes to the movies.

“I tell you what I did see recently, and I loved it. It was Florence Foster Jenkins, starring Meryl Streep. She’s great in it, and there’s an unexpected twist.”

What does he think of the sequel to Trainspotting being filmed?

“Oh, I hated the original,” he says. “It was all very gloomy and depressing, all that drugs and stuff. It’s not the world of cinema I loved.”

We’re in the restaurant now. Stanley has decided on two first courses. “My appetite isn’t what it was. I guess it’s because I don’t burn up the calories the way I once did.”

But his appetite for work remains. He makes a surprise announcement, when asked how he plans to spend Tuesday, the Big Day.

“Well, I’m working,” he says, grinning as wide as the he once did when landing his first major acting job at the Citizens’ Theatre back in 1948.

“I’m back on radio, recording a new Stanley Baxter special. And I’m delighted.”

The conversation rolls back the years. There’s real sadness in his voice when he reflects on the loss of his closest friends, producer David Bell and choreographer Bruce McClure.

“I have so few friends left,” he admits. “There’s only really John Reid (the Scot’s pop manager and theatre producer who once managed Elton) and a couple of others.

“Then when you think about losing pals such as Ronnie Corbett (whom he brought into panto in 1967 ) and Ronnie Barker (whom he first worked with on television in 1959) it’s all very sad.”

He can’t quite make it to his idyllic villa in Cyrpus, but Stanley still enjoys reading, and watching TV and the occasional lunch in the village.

What does he enjoy on television?

“I love Mrs Brown,” says the man whose female impressions were considered to be the template for drag by the likes of Stephen Fry and Billy Connolly.

“In fact, you can’t believe that Brendan O’Carroll’s character is a man. It’s that good.”

What does he think of reality television stars such as the Kardashians? “Are they a pop group?” Not a bit of it. “So what do they actually do?” That’s a very good question, Stanley.

As the first course arrives, with wine, Stanley says he worries about the likes of the X Factor contestants.

“You really need to learn your craft if you hope to survive in the business. I was very lucky in that my mother was dragging me out to perform on the church socials circuit from the age of six. That teaches you how to work an audience.”

But it also meant a little boy travelling home at midnight on dark, damp, smoke-filled buses on school nights. These days, Stanley, social services would be involved?

“That’s true,” he says, grinning. “But I guess my mother thought she was doing what was best for me.” And her? “At times,” he admits.

We work through the chicken and through his career. Does he have regrets about turning down in America? “There’s no guarantee I would have made it in the States. Bruce Forsyth tried and failed, so what chance would I have had?”

The comparison with Forsyth is invidious. Stanley Baxter was never a showman, certainly never a song and dance man. He was a writer, a creator of clever, sometimes risqué comedy with an international references which could well have hit the mark across the pond.

“We’ll never know,” he says with a shrug, confining the subject to the dustbin.

What about personal regrets? He does feel incredibly sad about the loss of his wife Moira, who suffered from depression for years, a fragile creature who dedicated her life to him from the moment they met as young Citizens’ Theatre actors. “I wish she’d had a happier life,” he says.

Stanley is delighted to be working on radio, but he won’t appear on television.

“I don’t want to play an old fart,” he says, grinning; “That’s the beauty of radio. No one can see what you look like.”

Nor does he consider himself a Scottish comedy star.

“I didn’t want to be a ‘Scotch’ comedian. I wanted not to be labelled, not to be identified.”

That’s also been the case in his personal life, having a few select group of friends.

But Stanley is still very with us. And that’s surprising on one level because he’s a natural worrier and stress is corrosive. However being a confirmed hypochondriac had aided longevity.

“Every headache a brain tumour, every cough is cancer,” he says. “I’m off to see a specialist at the drop of a hat.”

Have the years given him a clarity, a wisdom perhaps which youth sometimes denied?

“No,” he says emphatically, grinning. “If it had I’d be able to understand the European Referendum debate. I’m as clueless as they come.”

He adds, grinning; “What I do know however is that when I’m ninety five I’m going to ask for a pay rise. Radio comedy doesn’t pay that well.”

Half an hour later, he’s in the car ready to go home, still smiling, and feeling buoyant.

“I’m so glad I came out to play,” he says. “We must do it again next year.”