Des O'Connor started his career in the Cambridge footlights alongside the likes of Mitchell & Webb and Sacha Baron Cohen but quickly skipped to the screens of MTV UK and the airwaves of Radio 1 where he was crowned the King of Cabaret. Now he’s working with Tom Gravett and Café de Paris to create two of the most exciting cabaret evenings in the capital in 2014.

We quizzed Des on secret societies, the history of Cafe de Paris, composing and Christmas.

RR: London Cabaret Society will be exploring the world of secret societies- which one would you like to be a member of and why?

DOC: As a celebrated member of the London Cabaret underground, it’s a job to stop secret societies begging me to join, from the Masons to the Bilderbergs via every subversive sect in between. The Illuminati can be irritatingly insistent, but I rather fancy myself as an Oddfellow, more for the name than what they stand for.

RR: Cafe de Paris is a wonderful venue with a fascinating history as London's oldest surviving cabaret- what show from its past do you wish you had been at?

DOC: ...that’s a hard one, there are simply too many to choose from; rubbing shoulders with Edward VIII, Cole Porter and the Aga Khan in the 20’s and 30s; to have been there in the 1950s when Noël Coward performed with Marlene Dietrich, or to have drunk away the small hours with Frank Sinatra, Tony Hancock and Grace Kelly sounds impossibly glamorous! More recently, I would have loved to have seen the secret Prince gig or to have been there for Dita Von Teese at the 80th Birthday Party. That said, the past is the past; now I am angling for my invite to the 90th Birthday next year!!

RR: What are you happiest doing- composing? Performing? Presenting?

DOC: The joy of what I do is the infinite variety of the projects with which I’m involved. There’s something rather thrilling about singing smutty ditties with Scott Mills one week, writing songs about Woman’s Hour for John Humphrys the next and then finding myself casting, directing and hosting not one but two dazzlingly daring and erotically charged shows for Café de Paris.

RR: What acts are you most looking forward to seeing perform in 2014?

DOC: That’s a very difficult question without giving away how overexcited I am about the shows we’ve got booked for Café de Paris; Tom Gravett and I have been like kids in a sweet shop lining up some truly stunning entertainers for our first few months. It wouldn't seem right to pick favourites because every performer is a head-liner in their own right!

RR: You helped bring cabaret to the mainstream via Radio 1- was that something you consciously set out to do?

DOC: It’s something that I was very proud to be a part of. My relationship with Radio 1 goes back a few years, and the team who work on Scott’s show are always looking to keep their finger on the pulse of trends in entertainment. Cabaret is very much the thing right now, and I was really pleased to be able to introduce some of my hugely talented friends to millions of new fans courtesy of the Fun and Filth Cabaret.

RR: You're called the King of Cabaret- who would make up the rest of that royal family? Haha…well, there’s no shortage of queens and princesses! These titles are thrown about with abandon by critics, but it’s always nice to bathe in the temporary glory that comes of a crowning by the media. I think we’re all royalty in the world of cabaret; king or queen of the small principality we command during the ten minute reign that we enjoy every time we take to the stage.

RR: Christmas- love it or hate it? How will you be celebrating?

DOC: I absolutely love it. We performers have the unique joy of making lots of people’s festive celebrations that little bit more sparkling with the work that we do at Christmas parties and events, but then on Christmas Day itself we get to fall into the arms of the ones we love and rediscover the down-to-earth loveliness of Christmas itself. I’m looking forward to a sublimely quiet, cabaret-free Christmas at home with my loving partner and our beautiful little girl, prior to the thrills and successes that 2014 is set to bring.

See the London Cabaret Society every Friday from January 2014 at Cafe de Paris.