TELEVISION and radio presenter, gardener and Yorkshireman Alan Titchmarsh will be on stage at the Grand Opera House,York,introduced by Sir Derek Jacobi.

They are but two of the stars coming out to support Marguerite Porter’s Summer Gala Evening in aid of the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School.

“I’ve known Marguerite for a while,” says Alan. “We probably met at the Royal Ballet. My wife teaches dance, and I’d gone to the ballet with her and we bumped into Marguerite, and I’ve met her again since then.

“I think she first asked me to take part in the Summer Gala two summers ago but I couldn’t do it, but as soon as she said she was doing it again, I put it in my diary straight away.”

And what will Alan be performing? “Marguerite came up with a few ideas….”

…Such as? “Music hall”. Music hall? “Yes. For 20 years years, actually longer, I’ve been part of London Pride Music Hall, just a group of friends who perform,” he says.

“In fact I met my wife in an operatic society – the Barnes and Richmond Musical Society – and we used to perform at the Richmond Theatre, one of those lovely Frank Macham theatres.”

So will you be doing a music-hall routine, Alan? “As it happens, I’m not! I thought I wouldn’t burden anyone with a music-hall act in case it went wrong. I was asked if I would do it with Samantha Bond, but I said, ‘No, she’s far too beautiful!’ “But I’ve got a northern monologue I’ll do, called The Charabanc Trip; it’s about a young lad going to the seaside on a day trip to Sutton-on-Sea,” he says.

“I’ve adapted it; I came across it 30 years ago and I’ve added bits to it, so I’ve done it a few times before at the music hall.” He will not be accompanying it with a dance, however. “It’s very difficult doing a few steps to a monologue,” reasons Alan, who is looking forward to sharing a bill with the likes of Wayne Sleep, Samantha Bond and Imelda Staunton. “I’m the only name I don’t know!” he jokes.

Introducing all those names will be comperes Sir Derek Jacobi, esteemed actor, and Sir Anthony Dowell, esteemed dancer.

“It’s a sort of Ant and Dek show! We welcome them and we say goodnight to them,” says Sir Derek, whose knighted double act did the honours two years ago as well.

“It was a wonderful time; Marguerite is such a lovely person. We all come up on the train, stay at a lovely hotel, rehearse on the day and then do the show. It’s a very special event.”

Sir Derek arrives in York after his triumphant run as King Lear in the other York, New York, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, affectionately known as “The BAM”.

“It went amazingly well; the audiences were fantastic, and we did a very simple, very accessible production, which the British auidiences ‘got’ and so did the Americans. They really let us know they got it,” he says. “They laugh more, they react more and you’re more aware of their presence because they let you know they’re there.”

This is the essence of acting in a theatre as opposed to performing in front of a camera. “When an actor is on stage, his senses are heightened and a cough from the audience is like an Exocet missile going off,” says Sir Derek. “So each night part of your third eye is watching yourself and part of it is watching the audience.”

Lear is another staging post in this distinguished actor’s long career, a role that can only come with the passing of the years. “If you have any aspirations to attempt the classics when you’re young and thrusting, you go through the Hamlet hoop, and depending on how you’re received, you’re welcomed to the club or not. Then 50 years later, they check whether they were right to let you into the club in the first place when you go through the Lear hoop,” says Sir Derek.

He has played the role at home and abroad and navigated the hoop with élan. The voice, the body, the energy were “still there”. “In London it was eight performances a week, and physically I was fine; no worries on that score,” he says. “My only worry was vocally, three hours a show for those eight performances. It’s a performance on an operatic scale; you’re speaking arias – but no opera singer would do that!”

Are actors put upon, Sir Derek? “I was!” he says with laughter in his voice. “No, if you’re up for it, go for it. I sound as if I’m complaining, but I’m not. I’m thrilled I survived and everything is fine.

“It was bittersweet when it finished, but we were tired. It had been relentless but wonderfully relentless. Then you think, ‘that’s Lear, that’s done’. I’m going to have a rest now.”

Not before hosting Sunday’s show, however.

* Other stars taking part in the bill assembled by former Royal Ballet principal ballerina Marguerite Porter are Marguerite herself and Christopher Tudor, dancing to Night And Day sung by Alexander Hanson; Samantha Bond and Wayne Sleep, performing We’re A Couple Of Swells; Imelda Staunton; Richard Clifford; and the Ballet Boyz. Royal Ballet dancers Edward Watson and Elizabeth Harrod will be appearing too, along with students from the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School. In the audience will be Yorkshire artist David Hockney.

The 7.30pm gala is in aid of the Yorkshire Ballet Summer School Charitable Trust. Tickets cost £15 to £42.40 on 0844 847 2322 or www.grandoperahouseyork.org.uk