'I'm a popular Yorkshire busker - you never know what songs people will request'

I’m honestly not very much of a book person; music is my love and my passion. But I once read J B Priestley’s The Good Companions, which is a sprawling novel of a group of entertainers travelling to all sorts of venues, and trying to scratch a living.

Priestley brings them all so vividly to life, their hopes, ambitions and romances. I also love his An Inspector Calls, where he pricks the pomposity of a group of people who believe themselves to be superior to everyone else – and, or course, they’re not.

I return to Priestley all the time, a writer with sound common sense. And the other book I love is How I play Snooker, by Joe Davies.

He died way back in the late seventies, but he was, for many years, the dominant player, and he’s been rightly credited with inventing the way that the game is now played, things like break-building.

When did I first encounter a piano?

That was at home, where we had one because dad was quite a good player, and he made it all fun, doing things like pointing out that there’s a theme in Mahler’s First Symphony which, played in a certain way, sounds exactly like the French nursery rhyme Frere Jacques.

It’s little things like that which make kids take notice – as a three years old I “found” this enormous piece of furniture in the living room, managed to open the lid, and discovered that, if I pressed some of the keys, I go a noise.

I was hooked from then on, but I never had a formal musical training. It was only when I was in my late teens things started developing, and I got a residency in a Beverley bar for three hours every day.

I’ve been listening to

So much music, all the time, and across all sorts of genres, everything from Fleetwood Mac to Mozart, from blues, pop and reggae to English folk music.

The thing is that you never know what someone will ask you to play – it could be a Beatles tune, AC/DC, the classics, or La Vie En Rose.

It’s all about the mood of the room, and the mood of the person making the request.

I’ve got a really good residency at The Phoenix on George Street in York, where I’m pretty well known, but where there are always amazing suggestions which come out of the blue, and I love that.

On TV, I’ve been watching

Cooking programmes – if they involve making curries and dishes with spices, but not the Bake-Off ones, they are so predictable and, to me, boring. I seem to have a natural aversion to all that guff.

I can always return to Brassed Off, which has some superlative playing in it (not to mention the performances from people like Pete Postlethwaite, and I like Hugh Grant, in Heretic.)

Then there’s tons of snooker, both live from the Crucible, when it’s on, and vintage material when I can seek it out.

I’m such a snooker fanatic that my lovely partner is called Rhonda, but I call her ‘Ronnie,’ after Ronnie O’Sullivan. How she puts up with it, I do not know.

The live performance I’d recommend is

We went off to The Barbican, in York, not so long back, to see Fascinating Aida, and I was blown away by their talents and skill. An amazing group, who cover all the motions and who just could not be faulted.

We laughed till we were silly, then we cried – and they had the audience in the palm of their hands. They took entertainment to a whole new level.

My next boxed set or streamed series will be (or was….)

Anything with Steve Coogan in it, and particularly when he’s playing Alan Partridge. Everything who is in the entertainment business knows an Alan Partridge.

Then there’s Tony Hancock. His colleague Bill Kerr once said that Hancock “mirrored the human condition,” and I think that he had that spot on. There’s pathos, chaos, hysterical comedy and infinite sadness.

If I had to pick one Hancock that shows him at his infinite best, it would be The Rebel, his movie where he plays a pretentious, struggling, would-be artist, who has an infinitely over-estimated opinion of his own talents.

And, like Alan Partridge, we’ve all known a Rebel or two in the music business.

The App I couldn’t be without is

Forscore, a complete music library in one app on one device. Transformational. Gone are the days of carrying huge bundles of scores around with me, there it all is, at the touch of a button.

What is right at the top of your “To do” Bucket list?

It would be wonderful to go back to some of the inspirational schools I taught at in Ethiopia, but I’m waiting till a dodgy ankle gets the all-clear, because I’d be very wary of all those uneven surfaces.

And, if you can put in a word for me to get a couple of tickets to the World Snooker Finals in Sheffield, you would have one delighted musician here, and a friend for eternity.