Age: 53.
Appearance: "A Liberace for the 90s", a classical-music bigwig once called him.
Kennedy's a pianist? I could have sworn he plays the violin. The picture's a giveaway, isn't it? It was Kennedy's "ludicrous clothes and grotesque, self-invented accent" the BBC man was thinking of. The accent was mockney; the clothes were loose, shiny and sprinkled with jewellery. This was Not The Done Thing for a serious musician.
I think my dentist's got one of his CDs. He plays it to drown out the screams. There are a lot of them around. Kennedy's 1989 take on The Four Seasons is one of the bestselling classical albums of all time.
And it inspired a pizza topping. Was it all because of his fiddling? That and the bad-boy image. Nigel used the f-word! He smoked dope! He sometimes wore an Aston Villa shirt! He went whole days without shaving! No wonder the critics called him a punk.
But that was decades ago. Surely he can't still be shocking anyone? Oh yes he can. Just this week, a group of Kennedy fans practically tore the Birmingham Symphony Hall to pieces!
Really? No, not even slightly. But they were jolly annoyed. There was slow hand-clapping and harrumphing and everything.
This is sounding more and more like a Pistols gig every minute. Isn't it just? And we haven't even mentioned the spitting.
So what was the near-riot about? And when do we get to the heroin addiction, pogoing and murder? Er . . . don't hold your breath. But Nigel did turn up half an hour late for the performance!
Oh my word. Precisely. This kind of behaviour is unheard of at a classical concert. When Nigel started blathering on about his "beautiful" orchestra, one furious member of the audience yelled out: "I've paid 40 quid for this – get on with it!"
These classical gigs don't sound as boring as I'd imagined. It gets better.Kennedy then replied: "If you'd paid 80, I'd have been on time, mate."
Do say: "The punk's not dead."
Don't say: "He just smells that way."
