You would be mistaken if you took the title of the musical, All the Fun of the Fair, to assume that you were signing up for a cheerfully up-beat story. It actually shows that it is not always fun at the fair. Or at the theatre.

After blinding the audience with lights, stalls and bumper cars were whisked on and offstage to evoke the dynamic and exciting atmosphere of the fair. At one point silver streamers burst out, decorating audience members who then walked around in the intermission with streamers in their hair.

The fairground set was minutely accurate down to details such as the sweets, with lurid green and sparkly outfits to capture the 1970’s setting. Yet this did nothing to disguise the fact that it felt like a school production.

The plot exists only to support a whistlestop tour through David Essex’s hits, including such songs as Hold Me Close, Gonna Make You a Star and the famous Winter’s Tale, with which the show opened and closed.

As soon as things got tough for the characters, they burst into a feel-good song, in stereotypical musical style.  Cheesy as it was, this was part of its charm for the enthusiastic audience. Even the moments of very poor acting, including the overdramatic revelation of an affair and a mortifyingly bad slap, just had the audience “ooh”-ing and then laughing good-naturdly.

It only took David Essex to step foot onstage for an explosion of clapping and cheering to commence. The corny jokes had the audience in stitches and when David Essex described his younger self as “skinny as a rake with long dark curly hair”, the audience went crazy. At the end, a large part of the audience jumped to their feet for a standing ovation.

For the right generation this production was a hit, but don’t go and see it unless you are a hardcore David Essex fan, as in all likelihood it won’t make any sense.

First published 11/10/11

Two Stars