I’m sitting in Sofia’s Hilton Hotel opposite a besotted football supporter with a pseudo-mohican hairdo and three days’ growth of beard. He’s wearing a faded Aston Villa T-shirt and cradling a pint of beer as if it’s a natural appendage to his arm. I can’t see his eyes because they’re hidden by orange-tinted shades. As I near him, he’s launching into a tirade against "Man United, Chelsea and Spanish football".

He flirts with the Bulgarian lovelies floating around the reception. His language is peppered with four-letter words. He could be any slightly dissipated middle-aged British lager-lover littering any bar in Europe. Except in this case he also happens to be the most talented and acclaimed classical musician of his generation: Nigel Kennedy, the former child sensation, now turned 52-year-old versatile musician. But, as I find out, age has not diminished the rebel inside him.

Even his critics can’t decry Kennedy’s talent. When he plays he is transformed into an impassioned genius. It’s as if he goes into a catatonic trance – he seems hardly conscious of anything around him. A scarred nape of his neck, home to his violin during thousands of performances, testifies to his  commitment and concentration. Of course, he denies being touched – as ‘twere’ – by greatness. "I don’t think of myself like that because I’m always trying to improve," he says. Indeed every ‘morning’ he practises two to three hours of Bach on his violin. His neighbours get a free concert, I point out. "Except they’re not best pleased when they get one at three o’clock in the morning," he says. Oh!

The rockin’, tourin’ violinist
I shouldn’t imply that Kennedy is anything but friendly and warm-hearted. The footie fascination is slightly overbearing but never aggressive. He kisses the hands of the female hotel staff. If you didn’t know who he was, he could be any beer-drinkin’ Smithie, certainly no ‘aristocrat’ of the music scene. Perhaps that’s one of the secrets to his success. He’s given classical music and, in particular, the violin, street cred. He’s made it trendy for the masses to go to a Kennedy concert. It could be a carefully cultivated image – and I suspect it is – but one that has certainly boosted and broadened his appeal.

When you see Nigel (I’m surprised he hasn’t changed that first name) with his entourage exchanging banter about attempted sex frolics and brushes in hotels you’re reminded of a rock star on tour. The previous night, for example, Kennedy claims to have survived a near miss attack by an enraged Polish ‘tank’ who objected to his girlfriend taking a shine to Nigel in his hotel suite. He’s great mates with all the members of the orchestra, cheerfully joshing one of the guys as a cowardly mother...... for not intervening during aforementioned ‘near miss’ incident.

Aside from the footie and frolicking he also has a slightly little-boy-lost look about him. His aide de camp has to take care of him. He’s just flown in from Poland and he’s tired. He now spends most of the year in Krakow with his Polish wife (where he loves walking in the mountains "away from all that man-made ....") but he also lives in London and Malvern, home to his 12-year-old son – Sark – from his first marriage whom, he says, he makes sure to see at least 10 days a month. Nigel has strong views on thrusting child musical prodigies into the limelight too early. "It can really be destructive because it interferes with their normal life. The same goes for these young tennis stars. Not that I have any concept of a normal life," he says quickly.