David Essex still has fair love affair at Birmingham Hippodrome
SINGER and actor David Essex has always been intrigued by the funfair, so much so that he ran away to join one as a teenager.
Brought back home a few weeks later, David’s imagination was nevertheless truly ignited by the experience and he has been fascinated by the bright lights ever since.
So when he joined forces with writer Jon Conway to create a new musical it was almost inevitable that the funfair would prove to be its inspiration.
All The Fun Of The Fair is the result, a musical set to songs by David which tells the tale of funfair owner Levi Lee as he struggles with family and love.
It is a story close to David’s heart.
“I have always been fascinated by the funfair and I had a brief period when I was in school when I went off with a funfair,” he recalls. “It lasted for a while but then my dad came to prize me back. I was about 14 and was working on the dodgems.”
His dodgem career may have been shortlived but David carried those memories with him as he hit stardom with a host of top ten hits, films and musicals in the decades that followed.
“What struck me about the funfair was how insular it was,” he says. “And how hard working.”
