Eric would have loved it, says Des O'Connor

Des O'Connor is proud of his new album, Inspired. Very proud.

"It's so good, I think even Eric Morecambe might have liked it," he says.

Whatever else you might say about the veteran entertainer, you can't accuse him of pomposity. In the 1970s, the comedian-turned-crooner was ribbed mercilessly on the Morecambe & Wise show, but he never seemed to mind. Indeed, he once even claimed that he wrote many of Morecambe's jokes about his much-maligned records.

"I think people, particularly in showbusiness, take themselves much too seriously," he says.

"You're not doing brain surgery, it's about having fun and entertaining people. It's about having a laugh, and if you can't have a laugh against yourself, you really shouldn't be doing it."

In fact Des seems to feel a tinge of sadness that he is no longer the target of every comedian's humour.

"At one time, everybody was doing Des O'Connor jokes like, I had my record thrown into the river and the fish jumped out, but you don't hear it it so much nowadays.

"It's a bit sad really, dear Eric is no longer with us. My time with Eric was fantastic, he was so funny, but I think if a comedian did that joke now, people would think it was a bit dated."

He does admit though there are times when he worried about about the effect that the constant lampooning would have on his career.

"There were times when I thought 'is this going to destroy me,' but we have released 36 albums, selling 16 million copies, and we're working on my 37th, so it hasn't done any harm.

"I think the more publicity we got, the more people went out and bought them. I think some people bought them for a bit of a laugh, and then found they enjoyed them."

It is significant that Des uses the "we", rather than the "I" pronoun when referring to his albums, and while he is happy to be the butt of jokes, do not think that he does not take his work - including his singing - seriously.

"Believe me, we're good," he says. "We've got a full orchestra on stage, made up of 33 wonderful musicians."

Des returns to Lichfield's Garrick Theatre in March following a recent sell-out show at the venue.

Des, who is now 77 but looks 20 years younger, has had a soft spot for the West Midlands ever since he went out with a girl from the Brierley Hill area as a young man.

"I used to go up the High Oak in Pensnett for a pint. It was bostin'."

He also compered Buddy Holly's performance at Wolverhampton's Gaumont cinema, during the singer's only UK tour before his tragic death in 1959.

Did he remember what he was doing when he heard the news that Buddy had been killed.

"No, it wasn't like with President Kennedy, where everybody remembers where they were when he died. But working with Buddy was a very special moment in my life, I was the only English comedian who ever had the pleasure of working with him."

Nowadays, Des is probably best known for his television chat shows, which ran in one form or another from 1963 to 2002.

Over the years, he has interviewed hundreds of stars from the world of entertainment - famously laughing uncontrollably when many of the comedians joined him on the sofa - and also provided a launch pad for many of the lesser known performers.

He remembers Oldbury-born comedian Frank Skinner, who made his TV debut on the show, as one of his favourite guests.

"He said he was very worried, that it might damage his credibility. I told him it was not exactly lacking credibility to play to the 12 million viewers who were all watching.

"I think my favourite guests were the comedians, I had Ben Elton, Joe Pasquale on, then there were the masters like Spike Milligan."

But one real dislike of his is bad language, and he takes great pride in the fact that his shows are always suitable for all the family.

"I have seen some really good comedians, and I think 'why are they swearing?' They could take that bad word out, and it would still be just as funny."

Des got his first taste of performing when he was enrolled into the entertainment troupe while he was in the RAF. "I was ordered into the entertainment business, that is a great story," he says.

He also played professional football for Northampton Town - "not very well," he adds - and spent time as a clerk in a Northampton shoe factory before deciding it was showbusiness, rather than the shoe business, that was right for him.

He joined Butlins as a red coat, but it was in the unforgiving environment of Glasgow's Empire Theatre when probably the toughest moment of his fledgling comedy career came.

"I threw a faint so I could get off the stage," he says. "People weren't laughing, but there was a reason why they weren't laughing.

"The woman on before me, her husband had been killed the week before, and she left the stage in tears. I had to follow that, and I wasn't ready at all, nobody wanted to laugh.

"But if you are a comedian you are going to have good nights and bad nights. A friend of mine said 'I don't rate your act, but at least you have never died on stage,' and I said to him 'you should have seen me in Glasgow'."

Yet despite this early setback, and a subsequent television career spanning 46 years which has seen him beamed across several continents, Des says there is nothing he likes more than live comedy.

"There's nothing like hearing instant roars of laughter," he says.