Composer, pianist and musical director on popular TV shows such as Parkinson and Strictly Come Dancing

In 1971, when the BBC chat show Parkinson began, its host, Michael Parkinson, asked his friend Laurie Holloway to be the musical director. “I unfortunately had to refuse because I was engaged to be the musical director for Engelbert Humperdinck,” said Holloway, who has died aged 86. “We stayed good friends although I had to turn the offer down.”

Holloway, a renowned jazz pianist who had accompanied Cleo Laine on stage and was at one time a member of her husband John Dankworth’s band, worked with Humperdinck between 1970 and 1975 on tours of the US and TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic – as well as studio recordings – while Harry Stoneham became the Parkinson show’s musical director and composer of its theme tune, one of the most recognisable on TV.