As a professional comedian for more than 40 years, it is amazing to think that Tony Gerard has never done stand-up. But then that's because he has been confined to a wheelchair since the age of four after contracting childhood polio.

Never one to let his disability get in his way, Tony Gerrard first started performing as long ago as 1968 alongside the likes of Bernard Manning, Frank Carson and Mike Reid.  Indeed he is probably the only comedian still performing on the modern stand-up circuit who has now performed in six different decades.

Ever evolving, he is equally at home in today's comedy clubs as he was in the working men's clubs of the 60s and 70s and the "alternative" scene of the 1980s and 90s.

Self-billed as the world's greatest sit-down comedian, Tony Gerrard is one of the sharpest comics on the circuit, with much of his material and style belying his age and background, while mining it well for influence and subject matter.

Still the only professional comedian working from a wheelchair, Tony Gerrard uses his experiences of disability and discrimination not just because of the wheelchair but because he is Jewish to boot. Much of his material centres around the subject of intolerance, language and the dangers of social tabboos, all delivered with a rapid, quick-fire style.

A true all-rounder, Tony Gerrard  is also a first class rock and jazz saxophonist, Tony is equally happy performing summer seasons at Butlin's or overseas with Holiday Club International with whom he did four years in Tenerife, corporate, private and after-dinner shows at some of London and the world's top hotels The Hilton, The Waldorf and the Savoy.

A regular on the CIU circuit, he is also a perfect and popular choice at numerous charity shows and dinners for the Variety Club of Great Britain. Tony Gerrard has also entertained the troops abroad in Germany and, showing his age, Northern Ireland.

Tony Gerrard has enjoyed numerous television appearances during his long career including such legendary shows Celebrity Squares and The Comedians as well as Not On Your Telly, Dial Midnight, the Derek Jameson Show, Sky Star Search, Help and Laugh Till I Cried.

As a straight actor and professional cockney, Tony Gerrard has appeared twice in both EastEnders and The Bill, but is perhaps most proud of his work on two programmes about disability in the self-deprecating Raspberry Ripple and his first film, 1983's Skin Horse, a ground-breaking documentary, which won the Most Original Programme prize at the RTS Television Awards in 1984 and the prestigious Peabody Award for films in 1986.

Top comedian Tony Gerrard has a DVD, and video for fellow oldsters, on general release called Tony Gerrard Live as well as starring in a much sought after Best of The Comedians offering from 1992

As well as music, his hobbies include weightlifting, stamp collecting and table tennis for which was once Paraplegic Table Tennis Singles champion, but he admits to being a very bad dancer.