Adele leads list of honours for the showbiz world as she is awarded MBE

Singer Adele is appointed an MBE, crowning an astonishing few months that have seen her conquer the world. The 25-year-old’s honour for services to music comes months after she won an Oscar for her James Bond song Skyfall. Still only two albums into her career, the Tottenham-born singer has sold nearly seven million albums in the UK alone. Her astonishing achievements in terms of exports - with the best-selling album in the world for two successive years - are likely to have been a decisive factor in the award. Sports presenter Clare Balding, widely praised for her coverage of London’s Olympic and Paralympic Games, is appointed an OBE for services to broadcasting and journalism. Other OBEs go to writer Jackie Collins whose steamy works include The Bitch and The Stud, golfer Paul Lawrie, GQ editor Dylan Jones and author Kate Mosse. MBEs go to comedian Rob Brydon of Gavin and Stacey fame, singer and broadcaster Aled Jones, singer-songwriter PJ Harvey, and author Joanne Harris. Entrepreneur and former Dragon’s Den star Hilary Devey was ‘flabbergasted’ to receive a CBE for services to the transport industry and to charity. Restaurateur Jill Stein, the ex-wife of TV chef Rick Stein, is made an OBE. She runs a business in Padstow, Cornwall, with her former husband, who received the same honour ten years ago. Artist Grayson Perry, actress Claire Bloom and Thomas Heatherwick, designer of the Olympic Cauldron, also receive CBEs. An OBE goes to Wendy Parry, whose 12-year-old son Tim was one of two children killed by an IRA bomb in Warrington in March 1993. In all, 1,180 people are recognised, of whom 72 per cent are ‘local heroes’ engaged in charitable or voluntary work within their communities. By CHRISTOPHER STEVENS, MAIL TV CRITIC It must be a cunning plan - for while actor Tony Robinson, who played Baldrick the downtrodden servant in Blackadder, is knighted in today’s Birthday Honours, there is just a CBE for his scheming master Rowan Atkinson. Robinson, whose character was famed for his shabbiness and lack of hygiene, admitted he was ‘a little gob-smacked’ at being honoured and joked that he would now be rescuing damsels in distress and slaughtering dragons if the need arose. More seriously, he added: ‘I’ll use my new title to highlight the causes I believe in, particularly the importance of culture, the arts and heritage in our society, and the plight of the infirm elderly and their carers.’ With his catchphrase ‘I have a cunning plan’, Robinson became Britain’s favourite dogsbody as the long-suffering Baldrick. And as a history-mad presenter on Time Team, he has dug up some of the country’s most prestigious archaeological sites. But his knighthood reflects neither his popularity as a sitcom star nor as a history buff. Instead, the 66-year-old actor was recommended for his ‘public and political service’ as a Labour party activist. His name was put forward by the Parliamentary and Political Services Committee, set up last year by David Cameron to reward party workers. Robinson was a member of Labour’s National Executive Committee for four years during the Blair era, and spent four years as vice-president of the Left-wing actors’ union Equity. His activism has never been low-key - wherever there’s a high-profile Leftie cause, he can often be found waving his red flag. When Bono and Bob Geldof were handing out Make Poverty History wristbands in the run-up to the G8 summit in 2005, Robinson was one of the most vociferous showbusiness supporters. His involvement with Comic Relief has seen him make several documentaries in Africa. In Britain, he rarely seems to miss a demo. At the TUC rally against the Coalition’s spending cuts in March 2011 he was a keynote speaker, and alongside hard-Left Labour MP Diane Abbott he campaigns on issues such as housing and welfare benefits in Hackney, the London borough where he grew up. Robinson was a little-known actor before Blackadder. But his career had begun with a West End success - he was spotted in an amateur show and offered a part as one of Fagin’s boys in the original 1960 production of Lionel Bart’s musical, Oliver! One night, as understudy, he stood in at short notice for the Artful Dodger. The experience left him with a love of comedy acting. He spent years in repertory, then set up a community theatre group. By the time he was cast as Baldrick in 1983, he was in his late 30s with two children. He felt distanced from the rest of the cast: Rowan Atkinson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, and writers Ben Elton and Richard Curtis, were all young graduates. The son of a council worker, Robinson had left school after gaining four O-levels. ‘The impression you got was that they slid off the silver spoon straight into the rehearsal room at BBC TV Centre,’ he said. Four series of Blackadder made him a household name, but it was a chance encounter with archaeology professor Mick Aston during a holiday in the Greek islands that led to Robinson’s most long-lived TV role - as the eager amateur on Time Team, leaping into Roman excavations or medieval ruins to uncover fragments of history. His enthusiasm was contagious, and the country fell in love with archaeology. Even the Royal Family were swept along. When Robinson was invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace, the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles became engrossed in conversation about what a Time Team dig could discover at the royal sites. Robinson’s private life has been colourful. He had a short-lived first marriage, when he was 21, and since Time Team launched in 1994, he has had long-term relationships with his admin assistant Heledd Matthias, and with singer-songwriter Teri Bramah. Two years ago, he married his statuesque partner Louise Hobbs, who is 34 years his junior and, at 5ft 9in, five inches taller than him. She is also younger than both his children from his 20-year relationship with Bristol solicitor Mary Shepherd. The knighthood will further increase his profile. He once said: ‘Blackadder fans call out, “I have a cunning plan”. Time Team lovers want me to dig up their garden … while the Tories shout: “You Labour idiot!” ’ From now on, perhaps that should be ‘Sir Labour idiot’.