HOWZAT

Still, Wakeman likes being hard to pin down. “When I hit 50 it was almost as if the media said: ‘Well, he ain’t going to go away, let him do what he wants.’ I can do an orchestral concert, a rock show, a chat show.”

His old band, the mighty progsters Yes — for whom, some might say, he did his best work — are always happy to see him. His new and lucrative line, though, is after-dinner speaking, often in the City. Is it easy to entertain bankers, I wonder, now that the roof has fallen in?

Wakeman looks at me conspiratorially. “It’s very interesting, what you learn. Recession is a bit like war. There will always be some people who do very nicely. If you have money, it’s the nicest period. I know people who are buying up property like there’s no tomorrow. And some of the people who the recession is good for are extremely powerful; have a vested interest in keeping it going.

“I’ve got a few friends on both sides of the House and I go down there quite a lot. But it isn’t spoken about.” He gives me a knowing look. “You’ll never hear a politician talk about this.”

Still, Wakeman’s personal fortunes are holding up. He lives in Norfolk, is more than solvent and is talking about getting married again. He’s engaged to Rachel Kaufman, a freelance journalist 25 years his junior. They met five years ago when she was commissioned by the Daily Mail to take a hard-partying rock star for a medical to discover what it had all done to his body (quite a lot). She has subsequently filed stories about Rick getting his eyes lasered, and his arthritis fears. Wakeman says: “We will get round to getting married, but we’re both very busy. It’s a question of finding time.”

For a man hitting 60 this year Wakeman is looking good in his pinstriped suit. The hair, now shoulder-length, is convincingly blond and he says he’s recently lost a stone in weight. There are dreams for the future, too — one involving his greatest indulgence. “I would love to do King Arthur again, it would be absolutely brilliant. And you could now. Ice used to take two weeks to freeze, now you can freeze it overnight. There’s certain ice now you can have dancers on as well as skaters. America has ice- hockey stadiums everywhere . . .”

There is a far-off gleam in Wakeman’s eye. And you sense that, after barnstorming Hampton Court, a quiet gig on Countdown just won’t cut it for this old showman.

Rick Wakeman, Hampton Court Palace (www.hrp.org.uk), tonight and tomorrow

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