Nicholas Parsons: Smooth operator

The mellifluous tones of Nicholas Parsons have entertained us for, well, decades. Whether he's chastising a burbling panellist, or proffering a Goblin Teasmade, the silver-haired and silver-tongued host manages to maintain decorum. But can he always be this composed?

I meet Nicholas Parsons – "actor, straight man, revue artist, cabaret artist, quiz-show host, star in the West End... some people can adapt their talent to encompass several disciplines" – at a London hotel. I'm a little early, so while I wait, I have a bet with myself that he'll be wearing at least one of the following: Pringle sweater; silky cravat; suede brogues and, possibly, driving gloves. I'm not sure why I think driving gloves, just that Nicholas Parsons seems such a driving-gloves sort of person, in the same way, say, that Bruce Forsyth seems like a monogrammed slipper sort of person, and Alan Titchmarsh seems like one of those beaded car-seats sort of people... deviation!

Ah, here he comes. He is dapper all right. And he is wearing suede brogues (chocolate brown, set off by scarlet socks). And he is wearing a silky cravat. "I've been trying to bring cravats back for 25 years, but they still don't seem to have caught on yet." His V-neck, navy sweater isn't, alas, Pringle – no telltale lion rampant – but it is, however, very Pringle-ish, is of the Pringle style, could easily be mistaken as a genuine House of Pringle garment. So it counts, I think. I am disappointed about the lack of driving gloves, but, in the end, decide it doesn't much matter. Nicholas Parsons will always be a driving-gloves sort of person, whether he wears them or not, just as Bruce Forsyth will always be a monogrammed-slipper sort of person, and Esther Rantzen will always be a swagged-curtain sort of person... shut-up! Fair enough.

He has just, in fact, come from Radio 4, for which he had been recording an item for Feedback. Apparently, a listener had complained about the use of "deviation" on Just A Minute, the Radio 4 quiz show that he has hosted for the last 35 years. "He said that I had deviated from the original meaning of deviation, which was deviation from the subject, but is now used to mean deviation from logic, deviation from grammar... but it's just the way the show has evolved."

I've always wholly marvelled at his hosting of Just A Minute. How can he be absolutely sure that Clement Freud has said "rather" twice? "Oh, the mental challenge is enormous. I have to concentrate very hard. I have no back-up at all." He smiles his smile, that smile, the one so improbably sincere it has to be for real. His skin is pink, and remarkably unlined. There is still, miraculously, something of the wet, juvenile lead about him. I can see him now entering through the French window, waving a tennis racket. But then he clocks David, the photographer, and the eyes narrow and the smile goes all icy, brr-brr (repetition?).

He wasn't told that there would be a photographer, he complains. He isn't prepared for photographs, he adds. Eventually, he agrees to pictures, but is something of a tricky subject. "No photographs while I'm talking. I know what they'll look like. No photographs from down there. I know what photographs taken up the nose look like."

The following day, he calls me to say that he has some interesting news. "The BBC has said that it's all right to say that Arena is making a documentary about Just A Minute, which is a huge compliment, and might add some colour to your piece." However, mostly, he is still fretting about the photographs. "I fear I looked scruffy," he says. Mr Parsons, I say, truthfully, you looked wonderfully dapper. You looked dashing. You looked divine. You looked divinely dapper and dashingly divine. He is not convinced. "I didn't even run my fingers though my hair!" he exclaims, wretchedly.

Yes, he's brilliantly vain. Later, even, he confesses that he wears his silky cravats because "I don't like the open-necked shirt look. The Adam's apple is very ugly." He is absent-minded when it comes to his age. "What does it matter?" I sense that he doesn't especially like being reminded of Sale of the Century ("And now, from Norwich, the quiz of the week!") as he does not consider it among his best work. Still, it's remembered by the public with tremendous affection, although, admittedly, as much for the magnificently crappy prizes as anything. The Goblin Teasmade. The rubber dinghy. The twin-tub washing-machine. The top, star prize of an Eastern European car. Eastern European car? "There were strict limits, laid down by the IBA, on the value of prizes. British cars were too expensive."

Once, he recalls, the doors fell off the star prize (a Lada) when he went to open them. He may even be quite proud of Sale of the Century, in his way. Certainly, telly is not what it used to be. "I like The Vicar of Dibley. That's particularly good. But it's sad that a lot of shows have gone down the road of humiliation. Big Brother is sad. But very popular, I know."

Nicholas Parsons used to be considered rather... well... ahem... hesitation! I'm trying to think of a nice way of putting this, OK? He used to be considered rather... hesitation! Again! Which makes it what? Hesitation plus repetition? OK, he used to be considered rather NAFF! Happy now? But, lately, he's been rediscovered and is enjoying something of a resurgence as "an icon of post-modern cool". Icon of post-modern cool? What do you think of that, Mr Parsons? "I accept it. I embrace it," he replies. His skin flushes pinker, presumably with pleasure. "But what does it mean?" he then asks. I say I haven't the foggiest, but am sure it's a compliment. "I'll embrace it anyway," he says. He enjoys a huge cult following on the university circuit, which he tours tirelessly with his one-man show, and this year he is doing Edinburgh, too. "I love Edinburgh. So exciting. I called today and the tickets are going very well."

His show, Nicholas Parsons' Happy Hour, takes what form exactly? "It's a chat show with a difference. I go out, greet the audience, do some stand-up comedy, have a first guest, interact with the audience, joke and gag, offer fantastic prizes. Smarties. If anyone says anything amusing, I throw them Smarties, you see." What sort of jokes do you do? "Different jokes for different audiences." Example? "I'm not being silly, but it's all about character and timing. It'll sound banal in print. And then someone will steal it and use it for themselves."

He can take himself quite seriously but then, if he didn't – if he was in on the joke – he wouldn't be Nicholas Parsons. I wonder, as "actor, straight man, revue artist, cabaret artist, quiz-show host, West End star...", is there anything he can not do? "In rep, I always played comedy or character roles. I'm not right for romantic leads. I played one or two, but they were not my best performances."

I try to get at his inner being, but without any joy. "I don't know what you are searching for," he says at one point. "The image we present is far more important than the person behind that image." He was much saddened, he says, by the publication of Kenneth Williams's diaries. Kenneth was, of course, one of the original Just A Minute panellists, "and the diaries showed a side of him we knew, but the public did not. Why did the public have to know?"

I say that I'm interested because I'd read that he, Parsons, had psychoanalysis in the Fifties. Now, psychoanalysis represents something of a commitment to the inner being, doesn't it? And in the Fifties, it must have been quite a momentous thing, no? "I have done some pretty courageous things, and one of the most courageous was to go into psychoanalysis. It did give me an understanding of myself, and so enabled me to express my full talent." Yes, but why did you feel the need? "When I was younger, I messed up jobs by being difficult, over-keen, overanxious, too intense." And did psychoanalysis help you understand why you were these things? "I'm not going to go into my psychoanalysis for your article," he says. I say that's absolutely fine. Quite right, too. The subject is now finished with. Closed. He then adds, though: "A lot is connected with your childhood. And the early experiences that condition you."

Nicholas, the son of Frederick Parsons, a Grantham GP, and his wife Nell, was always considered rather backward by his parents. Was even, if you like, treated rather as the thicko of the family, because he had a stutter and was dyslexic. I ask him what form his dyslexia takes. "I read very, very slowly. It's tremendously inhibiting, considering all the scripts I have to read." There is one big consolation, though. "I've developed an extremely good memory. I got through all my exams by memory."

His memory is, actually, quite astonishing. He can remember everything. He can remember the names of his kindergarten teachers, his kindergarten playmates, his nannies – "there was Nelly Cox. No, Nelly Kettle. She only became Cox after she married Joe Cox, who owned the local pub. I adored Nelly. She was only 17, but sweet, lovely, gentle. Her brothers were Ernest and Percy." He can remember, by name, all the other boys at the Dickensian prep school to which he was dispatched at eight. "There was Edwards, Hartley 1, Hartley 2, Davies, Mr and Mrs Bacon, who owned the school, and whom we called the Streakies, and Mrs Blanch, the matron. She ruled the dormitories with a rod of iron. She slippered me and was obsessed with little boys' bowels. She believed that as long as they opened every morning, a boy would remain healthy. She would line us up and ask us about our movements, and if they weren't up to scratch she would administer syrup of figs."

He never confessed how much he hated the place. "We never told our parents that we suffered because we thought that they'd been through it, that it was just part of life." His analyst, I can't help thinking, must have had quite a field day with the bowels thing.

He always, he says, wanted to perform. Why? Because, failing to get recognition from his parents, he sought it elsewhere, perhaps from an audience? "I find it very difficult to talk about family," he says. "Even if my parents made mistakes, they did their best. They were very conscientious parents. I feel no animosity towards them." They fiercely discouraged his actorly ambitions, though. "My mother thought showbusiness very depraved, and that I would end up an alcoholic in the gutter."

He trained to be an engineer, to please his parents, but simultaneously attended auditions and knocked relentlessly on agents' doors. Recognition is the thing, I think. Recognition for achievement. Or, as he puts it, rather formally: "The joy of performing is that you overcome the insecurity of your nature and are reassured by the reaction of an audience." There you have it.

I can't imagine him not working, although he insists he could. "I have my garden. I have the grandfather clock I've been meaning to fix for 25 years. I'm interested in photography." He lives in Gloucestershire, with his second wife Annie, and also has a London flat. Indeed, he must go now, he says. A family dinner that he is late for. So off he goes, in his cravat, suede brogues and sweater heavily influenced by the House of Pringle. I don't know if he's getting to his next appointment by cab or car, but hope it's by car, and that driving gloves come into it somewhere. Perhaps they are in the glove-box, just where they should be.

On the other hand, as I've said, it doesn't really matter whether Nicholas Parsons wears them or not. You'd still always sense that the entire driving-glove industry would expire overnight if it were not for him.

'Nicholas Parsons' Happy Hour' runs from 9 to 26 August at the Pleasance, Edinburgh (0131-556 6550)