This Morning host Phillip Schofield donned a dress as a farewell surprise for his co-host Fern Britton, he revealed today.

Dressing up: Is this the future for Phillip Schofield's wardrobe?

Schofield squeezed into an unforgiving clingy white number - together with red high heels - as part of a gag for her final show.

The silver-haired star did his drag act to film a video featuring the crew of the ITV1 show to help Britton remember them.

And Schofield pointed out that his former co-star had lost so much weight in recent months that it was a struggle to get into her dress.

He said: "One of the presents we gave to Fern was a video of a whole load of the This Morning team dressed in that infamous 'Princess Leia' dress she wore a few weeks ago. At the time it got a great deal of press interest so we thought we'd take it one step further.

Schofield added: "It's testament to Fern's incredibly svelte frame because we all really struggled to get into it.

"I am not in the habit of putting a frock on, partly because ladies - I don't know how the hell you walk in heels, but this is the second time I've done it for a laugh.

"The first time was a favour for Ant & Dec on their Takeaway show, they needed a punch line for a Pussycat Dolls sketch and before I knew it I was a new member of the band."

The presenter allowed his fans to share a laugh by posting the photo on his website today.