Des O’Connor and Jimmy Tarbuck: London Palladium, London, 2015
Showbusiness legend Des O’Connor shared a bill will legendary comedian Jimmy Tarbuck at the London Palladium in 2015. As I sat in the audience waiting for the curtain to go up. I thought about O’Connor’s long career as a singer and entertainer. The butt of many a Morecambe and Wise skit, O’Connor was a popular singer – my grandma used to love him and she would watch whenever he was on television in the seventies and eighties. He branched out from singing to successful chat show host famously corpsing with his famous laugh at comedy guests most notably when interviewing the unpredictable Freddie Starr. When he appeared on stage, the 83-year-old could still belt out a song and was extremely entertaining with the jovial Liverpudlian comedian Tarbuck.
I was very sad to read of O’Connor’s death at the age of 88 in November 2020.