Amusing and nervous impresario who once forgot about a booking in Northampton, leaving the audience staring at an empty stage. Gimmicky and stocky promoter who once did the Spycatcher Pops – passages from the banned Spycatcher book set to music at the Barbican and with free seats offered to MI5 and MI6 members on proof of identity.

Charming and diffident man who throws Teddy Bear concerts to which adults get reduced tickets if they come accompanied by a teddy bear (booking form requires the name of the bear and his paw mark too). And man who worked for Victor Hauchhauser for 10 months, 28 days and 12 hours.

Enter the so-called Grand Old Enfant Terrible of the Concert Scene, the chap who promoted the recent Turandot at Wembley, the Arthur Daley of the music world and Britain’s most successful classical music promoter, Raymond Gubbay.

The potentially ghastly little philistine is wearing a safe and sober suit, stripy shirt and paisley tie – free of the flashy or spivvy traits one might expect from a big-time concert promoter. ‘I like to merge into the background and listen to what people are saying.’ He speaks in north London accent.

Before we met he was dressed in T-shirt and casual trousers. ‘Now I’m wearing the sort of clothes I’d wander out to a concert in.’ He fiddles with his hands, does a shoulder-heaving laugh and leans forward over the table. He is thick-set and balding with wonderful soulful brown eyes. ‘I eat too much and I sit down too much. What else? Oooh God! This is difficult. Go on, give us a clue, ho ho.’ Is he good-looking? ‘Oooh no, ho ho ho I just think I am pretty ordinary. Even when I was younger I never thought of myself as particularly good-looking. I’m just me.’

He says he’s happy with his bald patch. He started to lose his hair when he was 18. ‘I wondered whether I should wear a wig. But I’m happy with what I have – or haven’t – got. It’s just like a wide parting, isn’t it?’ He points to his hairline. He is 45 years old. ‘It never worried me. I’ve never been conscious of age.’

He is seen as the Placido Domingo type, clean-shaven, whimsical, resolute when roused, and clashing with the Pavarotti-style figure of the other impresario, Harvey Goldsmith. What does Gubbay think his image is? ‘I suppose people see me as being at the popular end of the market, as something of a wide boy – which I would deny.’

He is shy and very nervous, and gulps down his food and drink and wiggles around a lot while he’s talking, visibly displaying signs of tension. He’s also making great efforts to be honest, despite finding the questions so tough. He doesn’t seem the type who would set the world alight. But he comes over as a kindly, warm and generous man. One also senses that this is a man with regrets.

‘I’m impulsive. I like to get immediate results and I have a low boredom threshold. I like to see ideas come to fruition as soon as possible. What else?’ he says. ‘I can be very rash and not very responsible with money – spend first and regret later, you know.

‘I’m also a bit antisocial. When I’m not working, I have to be kicked to get out and join in. I really like just putting my feet up and relaxing. I’m probably a bit shy – people may find that strange, but I have always been a bit diffident and hanging back. That and being self-conscious is something I have had to get over.

‘Sometimes I have incredible bursts of energy followed by great periods of lethargy. I’m very unpredictable in that sense. But when I get the bit between my teeth, I really push on and achieve things. Other times I can really lack inspiration and get depressed and into second gear. I’m either firing on all cylinders or in a stalled position.’ Thus he describes the petrol in his tank.

What changes would he make if he could have a car mechanic work on his parts? ‘I suppose I would try to lead a less pressured life. I think the stress can sometimes be too intense – one doesn’t realise just how much it is until one stops.’

How does this stress manifest itself in him? ‘Irritability, short temper, sometimes lack of enough consideration for what people are telling me. I don’t lose my temper that often. When I do, I always regret it afterwards. You have to let off steam sometimes.’

He is a mixture of Russian, Baltic, Prussian and Spanish Sephardic Jew. He clears his throat and coughs. ‘Being Jewish isn’t important to me in a religious sense. But being part of an old grouping influences you in a historical sense. It is there subconsciously and comes out in the Jewish character of liking culture, music and painting. One also feels slightly vulnerable when looking back in history and seeing what has happened to the Jewish people.’ Everyone who is Jewish, he says, knows someone close to them who has been ‘hideously scarred’ by events in the past 60 years. Is he successful? ‘I suppose on the whole I have been. If the test is measured by enjoyment – and I don’t suppose it can be – I very much enjoy what I do. In the eyes of other people, I suppose I am successful.’ Is he rich? ‘No,’ he says, surprised. ‘I care about material things inasmuch as I like to have a comfortable lifestyle. But I’m not particularly aware of wanting to have lots of money.’

And what of love? ‘I’m not very lucky in love,’ says the man who once fell foul of the GLC Women’s Committee harridans by handing out roses to the girls in the concert audience on Valentine’s Day.

Married for 15 years, he is now divorced and lives with his children, for whom he cooks. ‘The downside of my work is that it makes relationships difficult because of the unsocial hours. My work had a damaging effect on my married life, which I regret.’

Ask him what makes him attractive to women and he laughs like a motor starting up. (He also wiggles his wheels, doing a version of a long-distance runner with his feet.) ‘I’ve certainly never felt that women were attracted to me because of my looks, huh huh huh. People have been drawn to me because of a common liking of music.’ He smiles and winks. ‘I’ve never felt I was a particularly good catch for anyone.’