It takes a special person to cheerfully embrace their role as the butt of one of the nation’s longest-running gags. Especially when that gag was played out to 20 million of us on the TV phenomenon that was the Morecambe & Wise Show.

But it’s the measure of Desmond Bernard O’Connor that the memory of the ‘Desperate O’Connor’ riff repeated for endless laughs by Eric and Ernie still makes him laugh.

And that he is able, even after all this time, to tell me that Prince Phillip once asked him: “Are you really that bad?” To which, Des replied: “Of course I am, I’m worse, actually.”

Clever Des knows that the joke was just that and has cemented him in the public mind as a total good sport.

Perhaps that’s why Philip’s wife was happy to pin a CBE on his chest in 2008 and thank him for his services to entertainment. Well, that and the fact that whatever Eric and Ernie said, Des has a musical CV to die for.

He’s made 36 albums with sales of over 16 million and he has spent 117 weeks in the top ten charts. Since landing his first television series in the UK in 1963 he starred in his own mainstream show for over 45 years – longer than anyone, anywhere in the world.

Des is one of only a handful of British entertainers to be acclaimed internationally on stage and television. His American series was shown in over 40 countries and seen by 200 million people worldwide. On stage he has appeared at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, The Sydney Opera House, The O’Keefe Centre, Toronto and over 1000 times at the London Palladium.

“They gave me a plaque to commemorate my first 1,000 solo performances there in 1972,” he chuckles. He was back two years ago, performing in the musical The Wizard of Oz.

“Believe it or not it was my first musical and so different to anything I’d ever done before.”

“When you’re in a show with 50 people in it you’ve got to be a bit of an actor,” he says.

“There was this bit one day where I had to say ‘I’m sorry there is no other wizard but me’ and as I said it I slipped on the stage and ad-libbed: “What kind of wizard am I, I can’t even walk properly!” It brought the house down.”

He likes ad-lib; likes mixing it up a little. Don’t ask him what’s going to happen in his forthcoming show at the Bournemouth Pavilion because he says he doesn’t know, apart from the Sinatra tribute at the end.

“There will be singing and stories but it’s more of a happening than a show, certainly the first half,” he says.

He loves to involve the audience, asking if they’ve got any problems they want to share or if anyone wants to come up and play the on-stage piano for him.

“I think a lot of people think it’s a plant but we’ve had some magical moments,” he says.

“In truth some people have been so bad it’s been wonderful because I have to sing along with them, but others have been brilliant.”

On one occasion a lady asked to play Andrew Lloyd Webber’s ‘Memory’ and: “She forgot the words! I said how can you do that with a song called Memory?”

This is all said without any mockery at all because if there’s one thing Des loves it’s his loyal audiences.

“I often say to people that if they want to send in any questions, hand them in at the theatre or to the box office or whoever, and I’ll answer on the stage.”

He knows why the audience loves this: “It’s because it’s special to them, it didn’t happen yesterday, it won’t happen tomorrow, it’s here now.”

He’ll also take requests from the audience to sing their favourite songs because, obviously, he’s got a lot to choose from, just as he has a lot of stories connected to his Las Vegas days and from his phenomenally popular Today with Des And Mel show.

“One afternoon I was driving to Teddington studios and thought I felt nervous and couldn’t work out why,” he says.

“Then I thought ‘maybe that’s because today you’re interviewing Tony Blair, Barbara Streisand, Pavarotti, Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger’.”

The day went well - apart from the moment the monitor with his cues on it blew up just before Streisand walked on. Because he knew Streisand was nervous; “She’s a nervous person; we just ad-libbed and there was so much fun going on after that.”

He says he learned a lesson that day: “Never plan it all, just go where the conversation’s going.” That could also apply to this interview when he suddenly announces that in addition to all his other roles he’s soon to add the word ‘poet’ to his resume, after scribbling down some verses to amuse his nine-year-old son, Adam.

Adam had learned a poem about a glow-worm which inspired Des to start scribbling his own works, such as the poem inspired by a request to take part in the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are?

Des recites: “I did some genealogy, but I think I got it wrong, because according to me, I’m 103, and my grandma’s alive in Hong Kong!” Then he bursts into giggles.

He is 82 but looks 62 and sounds as if he’s 32. And, going by the fun and energy that he manages to radiate through a phone line, I wouldn’t be surprised if we aren’t doing this again when he’s 102.