Everyone wants a piece of Camille O’Sullivan at the moment – her star is rising as fast as her stage tears fall. Katherine MacAlister meets the dark queen of cabaret to find out why everyone is falling under her spell.

“I WAS on stage in London recently and there were two men sitting at the front who were obviously expecting me to get my kit off,” Camille laughs.

“And I looked at them and thought ‘you’ve got no idea what you’re in for’.”

So did they enjoy it?

“Yes, but they looked pretty shocked by the end of it,” she giggles.

Camille O’Sullivan revels in being hard to categorise, because she doesn’t fit into any genre.

So while she’s not a just a singer, actress, cabaret performer or burlesque dancer, she is frequently compared to them all.

What she does do, so well, is act out her favourite songs as she sings them, dressed in a sultry outfit of red satin, black fishnets, stilettoes and red lipstick.

And she gets the audience involved on her journey, so by the end they are as involved as she is.

And when I say journey, I mean journey, because while Camille starts off as the temptress she slowly unravels into an emotional, weeping wreck.

“Well, the show is called Dark Angel which gives you an idea of what it’s all about,” Camille points out.

“And the dark side comes from my Irish melancholy, which makes good theatre.

“So it is a bit Jekyll and Hyde, but I enjoy that because it gives me a lot of presence and strength on stage.

“The show is uplifting, gothic, black, funny and full of sadness and craziness, and I enjoy it as a performer and as a woman.”

Which is why Camille is creating such a storm.

A recent appearance on the Jools Holland Show ignited huge global interest and she’s scarcely managed to put her feet up since, with all the jet-setting.

“I’ve been doing this for 15 years now,” she tells me, “and of course there is a stage persona, but it’s all me, although I’m certainly more reserved off stage.

“My friends laugh because I’d never be so seductive or sing at a party, while in my show I’m extremely emotional and vulnerable, which would probably embarrass me horribly in real life,” she laughs.

So why this great unleashing of emotion? “Because it’s not just about pleasing an audience but asking them subtle questions in songs and taking them to that place.

“I mean, I could do a few happy numbers instead which would be easier, but that doesn’t interest me.

“And it’s not overtly sexual. So if I sit on a man’s knee, I’ll sit on his wife’s later so she doesn’t kill me,” she laughs.

But afterwards, isn’t there a terrible sense of anticlimax?

“Oh no, because I’m Irish and I just talk to everybody, and have a discussion about the show which is far better than hitting the bottle,” she says.

To give you an idea of what musical train Camille is on, think Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Dylan, Bowie and Radiohead.

“I’m just obsessed with the songs and can feel the characters in those songs,” she explains.

“I’m not really interested in Camille O’ Sullivan, the songs are completely what the show is about,” she says. Maybe that’s just part of her spell.

Camille O’Sullivan is appearing at The North Wall Theatre in Oxford on Wednesday, June 10. Box Office on 01865 319450 or got to thenorthwall.com