Television stars are giving readings at a Christmas concert to raise money for an animal welfare charity.

James Bolam and Susan Jameson from TV’s popular New Tricks crime series will be among those appearing to keep the Mayhew charity’s clinic going in Kensal Green.

Tony Robinson, who played Baldrick in Blackadder and presented Channel 4's Time Team, will also be on stage at the Friday night concert at St Matthew’s Church in Ealing on December 6. The host is TV presenter Danni Menzies, from Channel 4’s A Place in the Sun. 

Concert performances include Finsbury A Capella choir, which rehearses at Highbury Vale School and specialises in sounding like musical instruments, and from the Love2sing choir from Ealing.

The charity is known for its ‘TheraPaws’ service, with volunteers going to schools and care homes with their pets, mainly around Wembley, Willesden, Marylebone, Westminster, Kensington and Hammersmith, to hold therapy sessions for vulnerable youngsters and the elderly.

It also runs a drop-in weekly clinic at Trenmar Gardens in Kensal Green, offering essential items for owners who may be struggling to keep their pets with the cost-of-living.

“We work to stop cats and dogs being torn apart from their loving owners,” a charity spokesman said.

“A shocking number of cats and dogs are abandoned outside our centre every winter.

“Often we’re faced with heartbreaking scenes — tiny kittens abandoned in rain-soaked cardboard boxes, dogs tied to lampposts in the freezing cold and animals left outside our doors overnight, desperately seeking shelter.”

The charity also works with the homeless, giving veterinary care and supplies for their animals such as pet food, litter and bedding. It finds new homes for animals found unwanted or abandoned on the streets.

The charity began in 1886 as The Home for Starving and Deserted Cats, renamed in 1904 as the Mayhew in memory of its founder Anne Mayhew. It kept going through two world wars, giving refuge to homeless animals and their owners.

The concert at St Matthew’s Church, in North Common Road, Ealing on December 6 starts at 7pm. Tickets cost £20 (£10 for under 12s) and are available online at https://themayhew.org/events or on the door.