To him went the honour of hosting festive occasions welcoming in Christmas dressed as a reindeer in C4’s Camp Christmas the alternative game

To him went the honour of hosting festive occasions (welcoming in Christmas dressed as a reindeer in C4’s Camp Christmas), the alternative game show (Sticky Moments), the chat show (Radio 1’s Intimate Contact with Julian Clary), wacky sitcoms and, of course, spin-off books, spin-off records and endless live comedy tours where his fey put-downs, incredibly still undiminished by television overkill, had audiences in fits. In his absences, the hungry beast that is television light entertainment has gorged on the likes of Reeves and Mortimer, Steve Coogan and AbFab, to provide it with the surreally “alternative” comedy that once was Clary’s almost sole domain.Only 18 months ago, Clary was a ubiquitous presence on our screens. Now aged 36, he’s been away touring Australia for five months, writing a new series of his C4 sitcom Terry and Julian, and generally having a nice time in his north London flat with his former stage sidekick, the ageing, arthritic Fanny the Wonderdog. In his glory days his horseplay would see him pluck members of the audience onto stage, joust with them verbally, and then dismiss them with the merciless jibe; “there you go, back to obscurity.”Cruelly, the same could be said to have happened to Clary. I look at Clary for some assistance, some acknowledgement that this is a gag about woolly knickers. Did he mean ‘Winter Drawers On’? Am I meant to be sniggering? And what did he mean by “straight” play? Off-stage, six-foot something and classically good-looking in jeans and a very stylish shirt, with just the merest smattering of mascara, Julian Clary looks a bit, well, sotto voce and I suddenly don’t feel too confident I’d win any favours by asking him what he means.
To be frank, Clary has been a bit quiet all round lately. Apart from compering a Channel 4 cabaret show last autumn called The Queer Comics, the screen has recently been very devoid of Julian and his camp comedy, his outrageous Lycra bodystockings, his star-spangled post-modernist Kenneth Williams sniggers about sucking a Fisherman’s Friend.

They were children’s shows in Covent Garden about 10 years ago “One was called I Was a Teenage Sausage Dog,” says Clary “The other was Winter Draws On. We are sitting upstairs at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith and he is tellling me about the only time he’s acted in straight plays. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to avoid faintly sordid innuendo slipping into your mind when you talk to Julian Clary. I hope it was moonlighting, because her strength is definitely woodwind.

But this was a pleasing concert – which, incidently, advertised the fact that the ECO is in bad financial health. You have been warned.’Budd’ (Mon & Fri) and ‘Boheme’ (Thurs & Sat): ROH, WC2, 0171 304 4000.Profile, page 25. Philippe Honore played Mozart’s Violin Sonata K454 with refined and cultivated style; Anthony Pike delivered Brahms’s final chamber piece, the E flat Clarinet Sonata with a handsome full-tone; and in the Milhaud Suite for violin, clarinet, piano (somebody, you see, writes for this grouping) they joined with Thea King, the ECO’s celebrated principal clarinet moonlighting here as a pianist. The English Chamber Orchestra had one on Thursday at Blackheath, for an uncommon combination of violin, clarinet and piano that worked surprisingly well. He acts easily, with natural grace that sets him up to be the Tom Cruise of the opera stage (good-looking, slightly short).

And he eclipses everybody else on stage – including Cynthia Haymon, an engaging but extremely small-voiced Mimi. The dog barely registers.Orchestral players often feel their contribution barely registers in the ensemble, which is one of the reasons why orchestras increasingly promote their best players as individuals, through chamber recitals. Alagna may be French, but he has a rich and effortless Italian sound, more lyrical than spinto in what really is a lyric-spinto role, but with substance. He is, truly, sensational: the only Rodolfo I’ve known to bear comparison with the Three Ts, who have all passed through this production at some point in the past 20 years and set the standard. Because this time the Rodolfo is Roberto Alagna, the young tenor who brought the Garden to its feet as Gounod’s Romeo earlier in the season.