JOHNNY Ball is singing a song about saving energy down the phone to me.

It's such a surreal experience, I almost expect him to ask what shaped window I wanted to go through next.

Johnny is a television legend. To anyone in their 20s and 30s he is a man who will hold as many childhood memories as your first teacher.

Who else could make the laws of physics sound remotely interesting, let alone seem like fun?

If your memories have faded and you've come to think of him simply as Zoe Ball's dad, you're making a big mistake.

Johnny is still performing to 5,000 adoring fans a day with his educational musical Tales of Blooming Science.

His boundless enthusiasm for maths and science lives on and is helping to endear Johnny to a whole new generation.

The song I mentioned before forms part of his show, sung along to the 1812 Overture. Without any prompting from me, Johnny had burst into a full chorus down the phone. Now if that isn't a man happy in his job then I don't know what is.

"I have written the show, I direct it, produce it and I designed it," he says.

"I love it. People say that kids don't have more than a 20-minute attention span, we hold them for two hours.

"Two-thirds of the way through you can still hear a pin drop. It's the material that grips them, kids find it fascinating."

The show is a government-backed project to promote Science Year.

Last year he was singing about the joys of number crunching for Maths Year.

Johnny, who lives in Farnham Common, was improving the minds of children up and down the land long before the Department for Education and Employment discovered his audience pulling power.

He toured with Think of a Number for 13 years and before that shared the bill with Big Ted, Jemima and Humpty Dumpty in Playschool, a show he featured in for 17 years.

It is this long and affectionate association with children's television which has transformed Johnny into a cult figure among 20 and 30-somethings, and is paying dividends for him now.

"I have some very happy memories from those days and people treat me very well. The phones are always ringing.

"Lots of young people, who grew up watching my programmes on television, are now in positions of power in advertising companies and all kinds of PR companies.

"It's great," he laughs.

But what many people will not realise is that before his move into children's television Johnny was a comedian.

Back in the late Sixties he appeared in Val Doonican and Harry Secombe TV shows, compered ITV's Christmas Night Spectacular and secured his place in rock 'n' roll history by compering the first Rolling Stones tour.

But Johnny has no regrets about the direction his career has taken.

"After being a comic for 15 years, factual information was an incredible relief.

"Suddenly all the material was there and I could make jokes about factual things.

"I slowly realised there was no such thing as a happy middle-aged comic.

"Comedy grinds you down.

"I've carved myself a much longer career doing it this way, and it's so much more fulfilling. We do inspire children.

"If there are a few kids in each audience who, after seeing the show, think to themselves 'I'm going to be a scientist' then it is worth it for that."

Tales of Blooming Science is on February 28 at Wycombe Swan. For tickets call 01494 512000

February 14, 2002 16:00