Paddy McGuinness couldn't be prouder of his Take Me Out catchphrases

The host of the ITV dating show has become known for lines he always uses during the programme and reckoned that was what he had been aiming for.

He said: “I wanted Take Me Out to be a little bit cheesy and a little bit low-rent. You know when you used to watch Blankety Blank and the prizes were shocking?

“The, ‘Let the whatevers see the whatevers’, and, ‘No likey, no lighty’ [two of his favourite Take Me Out catchphrases], have seemed to catch on. I’m quite proud of it really.”

Paddy, a dad to twins, also admitted to being very picky about work: “I probably turn down about 70% of the stuff offered to me. But anything I do, I stand by, because I think there’s something in it.

“Take Me Out’s quite a hard show to do. It’s long days and you probably only see about 10% of the questions I ask the girls. With (new gameshow) Benchmark, it’s two recordings a day. I’ve never done that on anything and I think that’s my maximum.”

The comedian also had bad news for Phoenix Nights fans as he said that there would be no new series any time soon with co-star Peter Kay.

He said: “I think the Phoenix Nights reunion [for Comic Relief in February] was just a one-off thing. We all do different bits for charity and you raise money here and there, but we thought if we all get together and do one big push, we can tick a lot of boxes at once. We never thought we’d raise £5.5million or sell out 16 nights, so it took us by surprise, really. It was fantastic to do.”

He added that despite his success, he was far from being treated like a local hero: “In Bolton, within my own town, people purposely don’t speak to you [when you're famous] because they’re like, ‘Who does he think he is?!’

“They think they’re teaching you a lesson and, actually, I like that. They’ll purposely pretend they’ve not a clue who you are, which is fine by me! It’s when I’m in London I get it.”

Benchmark begins on Channel 4 today (June 1) at 4pm.