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Michael Henderson talks to John Wilson, whose obsession with songs from the golden age of musicals led him to form his own band

‘People think I am an expert on musicals,’ says John Wilson, in his pleasing Geordie voice, ‘but that is something I am certainly not. I am obsessed with songs, written by professional songwriters for professional singers in the golden age of popular music.’ It is a nice distinction, to restore the original meaning of that adjective, and Wilson, who is currently touring the country with the orchestra that takes his name, is proving as good as his word.

This is a fruitful time for the Gateshead-born conductor, one year short of his 40th birthday. Last week he was in the pit for Opera North’s revival of Ruddigore, a superb production by Jo Davies that did the company (and, more important, Gilbert and Sullivan) proud. Now he is taking his band on the road to present some of those songs that obsess him.