Desmond O'Connor (also known as Des O'Connor) is an English ukulele-playing cabaret host and musical comedy performer. He is a composer and lyricist and musical director/co-creator for the Twice Shy Theatre. __TOC__

Career

Des O'Connor was a member of the

Cambridge Footlights Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University. History Footlights' inaugural ...

at the same time as Mitchell and Webb,

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and

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. After a year away from Cambridge, he became musical director of the Footlights at the invitation of David Mitchell. At one point, O'Connor was a

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

teacher. In 2010 he was a presenter for

MTV UK MTV is a British pay television channel focusing on reality TV and music programming operated by Paramount Networks UK & Australia. The channel launched as part of MTV Networks Europe localisation strategy in 1997. MTV UK (previously MTV UK & ...

Bestival Bestival was a four-day music festival held in the south of England. It had been held annually in the late summer since 2004 at Robin Hill on the Isle of Wight. In 2017 the festival relocated to the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. The event was organ ...

and The Big Chill. In 2009 he was composer, lyricist and musical director of Scott Mills The Musical for

BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

, working alongside co-writer Emlyn Dodd and director Patrick Wilde. Patrick Wilde directed the musical ''Failed States'', written by Desmond O'Connor and Andrew Taylor, which won Best Book and Best Lyrics in the MTM UK musical theatre awards in Edinburgh in 2006. Failed States was revived this year for a run at St James' Theatre, London and at Latitude Festival, 2015, to mark the 10-year anniversary of the London bombings. He and Taylor also wrote the musical Toxic Bankers, which enjoyed an extended run at the Leicester Square Theatre in 2011.

Shows

O'Connor produced and starred in ''And the Devil May Drag You Under'' and ''Desmorphia'' which showed at the Brighton Festival Fringe in 2009 and 2010 respectively. ''And the Devil May Drag You Under'' has also played in Berlin and at Latitude Festival. O'Connor has made club and festival performances in London, Dublin, Amsterdam, Berlin and New York, and at the New York Burlesque Festival 2008. He has a growing and loyal fan base. In 2008 he was co-producer of the Ministry of Burlesque's High Tease during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and at Glasgow's Old Fruitmarket in December. In September of that year he produced ''Fallen Angels'' with Julie-Ann Laidlaw, a show that has been subsequently produced in Berlin. With Laidlaw, O'Connor created and produced ''Vive le Cabaret'' at the Pleasance during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2010, which won Best Cabaret in the "Edinburgh Spotlight" awards.

References

Living people British burlesque performers 1973 births {{UK-entertainer-stub