It’s a few days before Pride when I catch up with David Raven and I wonder how he’s going to rise to this year’s Gay Icons theme. He sounds amused. “I’m going as myself, of course!”

Now approaching his 80th birthday, Raven has more than earned his place among the greats. As his drag alter-ego Maisie Trollette he is one of Brighton’s best-loved performers, with more than 40 years’ experience in the business.

He has been a fixture of the cabaret scene – first in London and later in his adopted seaside home – since the late 1970s when he formed The Trollettes with James “Jimmy”

Court. They were one of the first acts to perform live at a time when others relied on lip-synching, and they quickly became a popular booking.

By day, Raven worked as a grocer in Selfridges but by night he entertained the gay community – and stars including Rudolf Nureyev and Billie Jean King – at renowned venues including Vauxhall’s Elephant & Castle, Camden’s Black Cap and The Union Tavern in Camberwell.

“I was recognised once when I was at work in Selfridges.

A man said, ‘Didn’t I see you performing at the cabaret last night? I told him he must be mistaken because I was a grocer.”

At that time he kept the two strands of his life very separate; homosexuality had only ceased being illegal in 1967 and the gay scene remained secretive, with gay bars and clubs hidden from view behind blacked-out windows.

But he chuckles at the memory of slip-ups, including the time he and Jimmy boarded a night bus after a show, his partner still wearing false nails. “Jimmy told the conductor he had to wear them because he had no calcium in his real nails!”

The pair first came to Brighton to appear as the ugly sisters in Cinderella at the Theatre Royal – the first of many pantomimes they would appear in. “Only the top ones,”

Raven is at pains to point out.

“I don’t do fringe.”

He immediately fell in love with the city and after a win on the pools he and his late partner Don put down a deposit on Rowland House, a guesthouse on St George’s Terrace.

Although The Trollettes split, Raven went on to perform with acts including Lily Savage creator Paul O’Grady, Eastenders’ June Brown (Dot Cotton), legendary drag queen Danny La Rue and film star Diana Dors, as well as appearing in “straight” theatre roles.

He also began his long support of charities, including the Sussex Beacon which nursed Don when he was dying of Aids. “We had so many friends in there,” he says of the care centre, which supports men and women with HIV/AIDS-related illnesses.

“But you couldn’t talk about it because it carried such a stigma.”

Over the years he has raised thousands for the Sussex Beacon, as well as the Martlet’s Hospice and 4Life Thailand, which cares for abandoned children.

After more than four decades in the business Raven remains as passionate about performing as ever, although admits to feeling a little out of place at some of the city’s newer gay clubs.

“The music is so dreadful!

It’s so loud you can’t hear anything anyone says!”

He prides himself on presenting an act that is suitable for everyone – “I don’t like swearing” – and on his ability to entertain even the most hardened sceptic. But he does despair occasionally. “When I have a young crowd in, I have to explain who Liza Minnelli is! Can you believe that?”

*Maisie Trollette’s 80th Birthday Show takes place at the Theatre Royal Brighton on Sunday, August 18