CHART-TOPPING singer, Las Vegas star and West End actress Anita Harris, once the highest-paid cabaret artiste in the world, will take part in a Legends of Stage and Screen double bill at The Red Lion, the Upper Poppleton country inn on York's outskirts, on July 6 and 7.

Joining her at the roadside Boroughbridge Road hostelry will be veteran comedian Freddie "Parrot Face" Davies, who was born in Brixton but has long lived in North Yorkshire.

"It's very unusual to have an event like this where two legends are in a small venue with an intimate audience of around 50 people per night," says landlord Mark Lee. "Anita and Freddie have been friends for decades and both are friends of me and Jean [landlady Jean Lee] too.

"Freddie and I are working together to establish the Red Lion as a cabaret venue, and although we know we'll sell out on this occasion because Friday's event sold out within days and we only have a handful of tickets left for Saturday, but it's all part of putting the Red Lion on the map for the next events."

Anita, 76, took part in this year's television series Last Laugh In Vegas and Celebrity Masterchef, after many years of stardom on stage and screen, both on TV and in films, not least in a brace of Carry On roles. In 2014-2015 in York, she played the villainous Baroness Hardup in the Grand Opera House pantomime Cinderella.

Homburg-hatted Freddie, who turns 81 on July 21, started off as a Butlins Redcoat and has since combined live comedy with TV work, such as The Small World Of Samuel Tweet, and film roles, most notably as Bruno Parker alongside Jerry Lewis and Lee Evans in 1995's Funny Bones and the Old Man In Portrait in 2004's Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban. In 1972 he recorded a romantic ballad, So Lucky, with lyrics penned by fellow actor and comedian Bill Owen, alias Compo from the never-ending Last Of The Summer Wine.

The late great Ken Dodd held Davies in such high esteem that Doddy wrote the foreword for his 2014 autobiography, Funny Bones: My Life In Comedy. Freddie and Anita will be accompanied next Friday and Saturday by The Red Lion Trio, and their cabaret turns will be preceded by a three-course dinner from 7.15pm.

The remaining handful of tickets for Saturday cost £35 each on 01904 781141.