"You thought you were coming to see some camp old drag act, didn't you ladies and gentlemen?"

Anyone who knows David Hoyle, either for his departed alter ego, the bizarre Divine David, or in his current guise as himself, will know that while he has an undeniable love of "decollage", he's a world away from your average man-in-a-frock artiste.

For a start, he has ditched the dresses. Painter, contemporary dancer, poet, raconteur - he can do it all and don't he just know it.

Straddling the fine line between endearing eccentric and venomous misanthrope, Hoyle launched his diatribes against everything from Stonewall to the EDF factory, via random song interludes and a choreographed striptease to the strains of Yoko Ono's Cambridge 1969/2007.

Recounting his life story from his Blackpool birthplace, via years of drugs and debauchery to his current position as a 40-something living in a housing association flat and desperately seeking someone, his life, as Hoyle said, "has basically been one long suicide attempt".

Thankfully, though, he's still well and truly with us. A hilarious performer with a tender heart under the lashings of "nude" make-up, he's the national treasure we should all get to know a bit better.