The actor and singer Graham Skidmore, who has died of complications from vascular dementia aged 90, was never seen on the Saturday evening audience-pulling TV show Blind Date, but his was the voice bringing razzmatazz to the proceedings. “My role is to make the programme more dramatic,” he said. “So I always try to find different ways of saying the introductions. When the music starts, you really get into the swing of things and it’s all very enjoyable.”
In the manner of a circus ringmaster, he set the scene for the potential romantic matches to come, extending his vowels as he boomed: “Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Blind Date – and here is your host, Miss Cilla Black!”
