Obituary: Des O'Connor

Des O'Connor, who has died at 88, was born so poor he got rickets, and fainted when he stepped on stage - but despite his mother's immortal words - he became one of Britain's best-loved acts.

Radio Times review

Once upon a time the highlight of Christmas was settling down to watch Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise's sketch show. You can see in this compilation that the roll call of stars who were prepared to be humiliated by the duo was legendary: Glenda Jackson, Peter Cushing, Shirley Bassey, Des O'Connor and Angela Rippon among them.

The running gags were brilliant and even if you can recite the words of their sketches verbatim, they still make you laugh. Eric's assertion to "Andrew Preview" that "I'm playing all the right notes - but not necessarily in the right order" is as funny today as it was way back in 1971.

Review: Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck at the Palladium

The jokes were dated and non-PC, the delivery perfectly timed: for one night only, the showbiz survivors teamed up to create a piece of theatre history.

Des O'Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck join forces at Palladium

The gala night in October will raise funds for The Royal Variety Charity.

Radio Times review

About once an episode, a guest on Frank Skinner's amiable pet-hates show makes a suggestion that immediately unites celebs, studio audience and viewing public. Adrian Chiles takes that mantle this week with his disdain for people who recline aircraft seats. It provides the best banter of the episode, too. Skinner has a stronger bond with Chiles, having witnessed many a West Bromwich Albion loss alongside him, than he does with the other two panellists.

They chip in, though. Des O'Connor springs to life with a perfectly timed gag about his own libido, while Radio 1's Jameela Jamil causes a generational and gender clash that's sometimes awkward, sometimes fruitful.

For many people, Eric and Ern are as much a part of the festive furniture as mince pies, flaming brandy and being disappointed by cracker novelties. And this yuletide grab-bag shows the double act at their twinkling best.

If a sketch can be an institution, then "the André Previn one" certainly qualifies. You'll know the punchline but just enjoy all the build-up, and Eric's instruction to the orchestra: "In the Second Movement, not too heavy on the banjos."

What else? Whipping boy Des O'Connor snaps at all the boys' insults, and Angela Rippon kicks out from behind her newsdesk. So, what do you think of it so far?

Ah, Des O'Connor. Indefatigable crooner, Morecambe and Wise foil, chat-show host and borderline national treasure. Who knew he's daft enough to eat cat food by accident? Or is he? Maybe his long, peculiar story about how he dined on this strange dish in a holiday villa is all nonsense.

O'Connor, looking as bronzed as a 70s sideboard, is a game contestant on Lee Mack's team, and quickly gets into the spirit of the show after a giggly start. Meanwhile, on David Mitchell's team, Rhod Gilbert regales us with an account of the acute trauma he suffered at an airport.

And comic actress Sally Phillips (Smack the Pony, Miranda) apparently plays a texting-game with her husband while he's at the swimming baths. Worse, she once rode her uncle's mobility scooter with disastrous consequences. Perhaps. It's a great show, and what Friday nights are for.

First shown on BBC Four, the second half of Michael Grade's history of the variety era examines what happened to the entertainers once the theatres closed and TV cameras beckoned. He talks to stars who managed to make the transition from stage to screen, among them Bruce Forsyth, Des O'Connor and Ken Dodd. Grade also looks at Sunday Night at the London Palladium, plus the impact of Tommy Cooper and Morecambe & Wise.

Much as I love the story about a young Des O'Connor pretending to faint on stage at the Glasgow Empire in 1969 rather than risk further exposure to the toweringly unsentimental crowd, there's a cynical part of me which wonders if the yarn hasn't been a wee bit embroidered.

I didn't expect Michael Grade's The Story Of Variety to rubbish it, and sure enough we got the director's cut (special edition).

Des continued with the ruse backstage, said Grade, so the stage manager carted him off to Glasgow Royal Infirmary where the nurses where persuaded to wield extra-sharp scalpels. That quickly brought him round and he was back on stage for the second house.

But this was a smashing show. Hoofers and troupers and agents with great names like Dabber Davis shuffled into the warmth to reminisce about a showbiz tradition born after WW2 as a more respectable version of music hall - then killed off by TV and a desperate lurch into nudity.

Liverpool alone boasted 25 variety theatres, according to Ken Dodd, who evoked the roar of the greasepaint like this: "Lovely darkened rooms, lovely smell of oranges and cigars - then that lovely rumpty-tumpty sound." But just as many anecdotes related to life away from the proscenium arch: on the road, Aberdeen one night and Plymouth the next, never seeing home for 18 months, not actually having a fixed address, the big meet-up on the railway platforms of Crewe - the digs!

Some landladies were "Artists only - no straight people". Some put out tablecloths for actors but not for "twice-nightlies", as variety acts were known. Roy Hudd recalled the Christmas Eve he hoped for respite from what had been a tyranny of baked beans: "Beans again, but with one chipolata buried in them."

Another variety veteran, Scott Saunders, remembered a landlady who was more obliging: "I got back to the digs late and the pianist Semprini was shagging her on the kitchen table. 'Oh Mr Saunders, what must you think of me?' she said, and just carried on."

Barbra Streisand hasn't done a chat show in the UK since being lightly grilled by Des O'Connor way back in the 1980s. The reason isn't that she has something to hide, it's more that she really doesn't need to. She's such a preposterously massive star that Ross might just drop his tiresome "pretending all the female guests fancy me" routine and actually ask her some decent questions. We can but hope.