'Drink?' offers the gamine, dapper figure in front of me. 'Afraid it'll have to be a gottle of geer.' There is the thinnest of smiles from Archie Andrews.
His voice is instantly recognisable – high-pitched, perhaps a little clipped, the authentic accents of a public schoolboy of the 1950s. Archie hasn't changed a bit.
The smaller but by no means lesser half of the ventriloquism act which was once broadcast into sixteen million homes has chosen to speak exclusively to Newsnight about his long-awaited comeback.
'I thought, I'm comfortable with you. You lot will know your way around something wooden. That came out wrong but you know what I mean. Be patient with me – I haven't spoken to anyone in forty years!'
Candy-striped
It's better not to dwell on the details of Archie's long eclipse from public view – I'd been warned that he was likely to be tight-lipped. But it's a credit to his engrained showbusiness chops that he is immaculate today in candy-striped school blazer and matching scarf.
'You know what they say, you can't put a good doll down,' he says.
Archie has agreed to meet the Newsnight team on a sun-dappled canal bank in Greater Manchester, where the former star of Educating Archie is relishing his longest professional engagement since his old partner Peter Brough retired in the sixties.
Archie is appearing at the Portland Basin Museum. 'They're looking after me here. I'm in a display case, which is definitely not where I see Archie Andrews in the medium- to long-term, but on the other hand the kids all see me when they come in. I'm top of the bill, you might say.'
The revival in Archie's fortunes began when he found himself a new manager. 'All the other toys had been bending my ear about representation. That's all you hear from the new kids. With the guys on Tobermory, it's like 'My agent's got me this book deal' or 'I'm making a record with the Crazy Frog!' Please!'
Pint-sized
Archie's now being looked after by Colin Burnett Dick, a care home director from Sussex who spent the best part of £40,000 of his own money on the pint-sized performer when the late Peter Brough's family put him up for auction.
'We had some investments sitting around not making us much money and we thought, this would be fun,' he says.
Colin had been fascinated by ventriloquists ('vents') since developing a morbid childhood fear that his own toys might come to life. Despite, or because of this, he was moved to hear of Archie's plight, condemned to long years in a suitcase after the curtain finally came down on Educating Archie.
On the canalside, Archie turns his head away, with a barely perceptible click. 'I'm not bitter, I haven't got a bitter bone in my body, but I mean to say, we used to be the biggest vent act on radio!'
'What happened, do you think?'
'Well, there's so much more for the kids to do now, that's what they all tell me, "The little talking boy is gone for good". Well let me tell you this, I'm STILL small. It's showbiz that got big.'
A transition to the small screen wasn't entirely successful, and even the act's greatest admirers admit that Peter Brough was never the most technically gifted vent. Showbiz folklore has it that he even filed his front teeth in a doomed attempt to get his tongue around the more difficult syllables.
Sap
Is Colin Burnett Dick well advised in his plans to find a new partner for Archie, and put him back on the road?
Mark Felgate, a young comedian who started out as a vent, says he wouldn't be interested. 'I always found those old dolls a bit creepy.' He prefers to incorporate the hard-won skills of voice-tossing into his stand-up act.
But Donna Marie Walton says she'd like to try her hand with Archie. An 18-year-old vent who works with a gorilla called Louis, Donna Marie has a deep, almost sepulchral range which belies her tender years.
She's the protégé of the legendary Roger de Courcey, of Nookie fame, who says that only a vent of Donna's generation could rejuvenate the Archie Andrews brand.
'Brand? I'm not a brand. This kind of stuff doesn't grow on trees, you know,' says Archie. 'All I know is, I can't wait to get cracking again. The sap's rising! And you can quote me on that.'
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