Dame Felicity Lott

And because in those days you had to be somebody extremely well-known to do a solo recital and to have an audience.

I mean, who would come to hear a newcomer?

And he thought it would be fun to do songs and words and songs of different kinds.

So he'd have Schubert and Noel Coward and a bit of Oscar Wilde to read.

And we did duets.

And it was with wonderful Anne Murray, mezzo, and Richard Jackson, fabulous baritone, an adored teacher and colleague, and Anthony Rolfe Johnson, fabulous tenor.

Much more.

And I think if you don't sort of start doing it or take it up pretty early on, if you get used to all the disguises and the help of an opera and the direction and the orchestra and being far away, it's terrifying to stand, as it were, naked on stage facing the audience and just be you but try and act the various scenes, whatever it is.

It's pretty scary, that.

People used to get fed up with me apologising all the time, certainly.

But I don't know.

It's a very hard thing to get out of, you know, the self-deprecation stuff.

And obviously, I mean, I know I've done good things, but you come off the stage so odd.

You think you've done a really good show and then somebody will say, well, I was a bit off tonight.

Or you come off and you think you've done a really daft show and somebody say, gosh, it was a wonderful show.

And people's perceptions are different.

But the number of times one actually comes away thinking, well, I'm proud of that.

I could probably count on one hand.

I hope so.

Yes, I think so.