Review: All the Fun of the Fair

Review: On David Essex - you may be silver haired and with a little more padding, but you still have that twinkle in your eye and an amazing voice.

The 1970s' pop star proved that he was still the consumate entertainer when he brought his new musical All The Fun of the Fair to Venue Cymru at Llandudno this week.

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Written with Boogie Nights creator Jon Conway, the musical combines many of David Essex's hits over three decades with a strong storyline, romance, comedy and tragedy.

Essex is fairground owner, Levi Lee, whose son Jack, played by Paul Ryan Carberry, falls in love with an outsider.

The audience was treated to an emotional rollercoaster of a story acted out by a strong cast, including Mr Essex himself and, of course, his hit songs, sung by him and other members of the cast.

The hits were woven cleverly through the story so that they did not stand out like a sore thumb but felt as it they could have been written especially for the musical - well, they would have done if I had not known every single word of every line off by heart and knew every expression and every lilt of Essex's voice.

For like the majority of the audience I had been a massive David Essex fan from his very first single.

And it was that song - Rock On, sung as a brilliant comedy piece that set my heart and those of the other middle-aged women racing.

As a fan I would loved to have seen him sing more of his numbers than he did although they did not lose the magic when sung by others in the cast.

And speaking to non-Essex fans in the audience they assured me that it was a great musical in its own right.

David Essex's lifelong love of the fair and his links with the gypsy community shine out in the new musical which may have been predictable in many aspects, but certainly had a dramatic twist that no-one could have foreseen.

The musical runs until May 16.

Sue Austin