Veteran comedian Spike Milligan and entertainers Jim Davidson and Jeremy Beadle lead the showbusiness celebrities recognised in the New Year Honours List.

Spike Milligan, 82, becomes a knight, although his award is an honorary one as he is an Irish citizen.

He adopted his father's nationality after refusing to take the oath of allegiance which stood between him and a British passport.

The former Goon also once publicly described the Prince of Wales - a close friend of his - as "a little grovelling bastard".

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Entertainers Jim Davidson and Jeremy Beadle also feature in the list for their charity work.

Davidson, 47, becomes an OBE two years after he set up the British Forces Foundation to raise money to entertain troops.

A donor to Conservative Party funds, the Generation Game host regularly flies around the world to entertain British forces.

Jeremy Beadle made his name during the 1980s and early 1990s with his prank-filled TV shows.

William Roache is honoured for services to television drama

He is made an MBE for his charity work, especially for the Foundation for Children with Leukaemia. He is said to have raised �10 million for charities in as many years.

"As a person who has spent many years surprising people this is one of my greatest surprises - this time it's on me," he said in a break from performing the panto Aladdin in Bournemouth.

"I believe charity is the rent we pay on earth. It has been a privilege to work alongside the kindest people helping those in need."

Coronation Street actor William Roache, who has played Ken Barlow since the series began 40 years ago, also becomes an MBE, as does Trevor Harrison, known to millions of listeners as Eddie Grundy in Radio 4's The Archers, which celebrates 50 years on air on New Year's Day.

Harrison, who has appeared in The Archers for 21 years, said it was "the greatest accolade I have received as an actor".

Jazz man Acker Bilk is rewarded with an MBE for his lengthy career.

A superstar during the 1960s trad jazz boom, his instrumental track Stranger On The Shore was in the singles chart for more than a year.

The 71-year-old clarinettist, who returned to the stage in April after being diagnosed with throat cancer in 1999, said he was "over the moon" with the honour.

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"I'll get a few of my friends in Somerset together, who I paint with, and we'll crack open a bottle of something, maybe cider," he said.

Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale becomes an MBE for services to broadcasting, 30 years after she joined the station.

She joked that her award may have something to with an album by an ambient dance act she gave the Prince of Wales some years ago.

"I once gave Prince Charles a copy of the Orb's latest album. Maybe it got to him more than I realised," he said.

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Floella Benjamin, best known to a generation of children who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s as a presenter of BBC Two's Play School, is made an OBE.

She is now the chairman of Bafta and has worked hard to promote the Commonwealth.

Songwriter Roger Greenway is made an OBE. His hits include Gene Pitney's Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart, and Cilla Black's Something Tells Me.

But his most enduring work is the Coca-Cola jingle, I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing, from the early 1970s.

While the film world has been largely missed this year, actors being honoured include Paul Scofield (companion of honour), Tom Courtenay (knighthood), Joss Ackland (CBE) Patrick Stewart, Charlotte Rampling (OBE) and New York-born Zoe Wanamaker, who becomes an honorary CBE.