“I’ve had a brilliant life.”

As Jasper Carrott celebrates his 80th birthday on Friday, the Birmingham comedian admits comedy is hard work but he still enjoys entertaining crowds.

“I don’t do as many shows as I used to,” he told the BBC.

“These days I do it because I just really love it, really enjoy it.

“Of course I get the sympathy vote from the audience – ‘oh the poor old devil, let’s go and see, it’s probably the last chance we’ll get to see him’.”

As a performer, he first came to prominence in the 1970s with anecdotes about Midlands life delivered in a Brummie accent – and his novelty single Funky Moped, a surprise top five hit in 1975.

He went on to host shows including Carrott’s Lib, Carrott’s Commercial Breakdown, the game show Golden Balls and he was in the comedy show The Detectives with Robert Powell.

Born Robert Davis on 14 March 1945, the comedian said former ELO drummer Bev Bevan played a part in his stage name.

“It is his fault”, he said, reflecting on when they were on a golf course in Swanshurst Park in Birmingham.

“We’d finished playing silly golf and a bloke came up…Bev said ‘oh this is Jasper’ and this guy said ‘Jasper who?’

“No-one had ever asked me ‘Jasper who?’…I just said ‘carrot’. I don’t know why.

“The Bevan thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard so he immediately went and told everybody ‘oh, it’s Jasper Carrott’.”

The comedian explained school teachers had called him Jasper but his wife went out with him for six months before “she realised it wasn’t my real name”.

“It was only when I took her to meet my mum and my mum said ‘oh hello Bobby’.

“I said ‘well, that’s my name, that’s my real name, Robert – Robert Davis’ and she couldn’t get her breath.”

Carrott was doing a few folk clubs when he started his career and had to call himself “Jasper Carrott – because that’s what everybody knew me as”.

Asked what his wife called him now, he replied: “Pain.”

The comedian also said “the most impressive person” he had ever met was Diana, Princess of Wales.

At a charity night in Birmingham, a banquet was held afterwards and Carrott, who was asked to do a raffle, was in the VIP room.

“I’d got my back to the door and suddenly in the room there was this electricity,” he said.

“I do not exaggerate…and I thought ‘that’s the princess’ and turned round and sure enough she’d come in.

“She saw me, she came through all these people, she walked up and she said: ‘Hello Jasper, how are you?’

“I curtsied. Why did I? I don’t know…but we got on like a house on fire.”

Eight years ago the comedian had major heart surgery – initially for a triple bypass which ended up being a quadruple.

Now as he reflects on comedy, he said “there’s an element of gift about it”.

“There are…comedians like Peter Kay. As soon as he walks on, you laugh because he’s got funny bones.

“I’ve always had to win an audience over but that was to my advantage as well, so I could slowly draw people in.”

He said he had had an “absolutely brilliant life”, adding he was married to “one of the best women in the world” and mentioned family and friends.

“It feels the same as when I was eight. You wake up in the morning and you get on with the day. Long may it continue.”