Review- All the Fun of the Fair
March 24, 2009
Date March 23rd
Venue: Sunderland Empire
Having seen David Essex perform several times already, in both musicals and concerts, there is one thing for certain; he has his loyal fans that will follow him wherever he goes and in their eyes he can do no wrong. Therefore combining his hits in to musical, starring the man himself, was a sure fire winner from the start.
Over the past few years we have seen these compilation shows take many forms, some of which are massively successful, like Mamma Mia and We Will Rock You. Sadly All the Fun of the Fair is not in their league.
Here we have Rosa (Louise English), a gypsy who works on the fairground telling us the story of the owner Levi, played by Essex. She starts promisingly enough singing A Winter’s Tale as the snow falls on her, but by the time she reprises the song two and a half hours later, we have seen a production that seems to grab ideas from the likes of Carousel and Blood Brothers and not know what to do with them.
Jon Conway, who wrote the book and produces the musical, fails to gives us characters we can care about, as the story tries to link in the Essex hits. It seems at times we have a play with music, rather than a musical, and the production takes itself seriously, instead of a tongue in cheek approach (as Ben Elton gave to Tonight’s The Night , which contained Rod Stewarts hits) which may have worked better. Even Blood Brother had light and shade switching form comedy to drama in a split second, which has no doubt added to its longevity.
The story revolves around Levi and his difficult relationship with his son, Jack (Paul-Ryan Carberry in his first professional role). Jack is attracted to Rosa’s daughter, Mary (Emma Thornett) but then meets Alice (Tanya Robb) when she visits the fair. When Alice’s father (David Burrows) turns up he is none too happy with the relationship and tries to split the lovers up. From here on in, as in all good stories, we know that the more you try to split the couple up, the more determined they are to be together and we will be heading for a tragic ending before the final curtain.
A sub plot to this less than riveting story is that Rosa and Levi had an affair but were caught together by Levi’s wife, who died in a motorcycle accident shortly afterwards. But it was not a traffic accident; she was a motorcyclist in the fairground’s Wall of Death, along with Levi and Jack. Levi believes that after finding out he was having an affair, she lost concentration and crashed.
The story is littered with Essex hits, often not sung by him in the show, but it keeps his fan base happy who were ready to clap along from the start. Although the pace of the music actually stopped them in their tracks and had to wait until the finale to join in.
I am not sure if Director Nikola Foster, who recently gave us the touring version of Aspects of Love again starring Essex or Sophie Lawrence (Eastenders, credited for “musical staging”), who is responsible for the Silver Dream Machine sequence. As while the Essex fans certainly lapped up the song, the site of the star, clad in leathers, rocking back on forth on a motor bike to simulate riding the Wall of Death, while lights seemed to spin to simulate speed and smoke filled the stage made me very uncomfortable as it simply looked embarrassing. After Essex started the song, he was joined by stage son Jack and finally friend Jonny (Stefan Butler), who was taking over the Mothers place on the attraction when they decided it was time to re-introduce the Wall of Death to the fairground.
At the end we are left with a scene very similar to Blood Brothers but you do not care about the characters and there is no heart wrenching emotion like Mrs. Johnson has.
Sound Designer, Sebastian Frost has done an excellent job on the effects of the fairground and the sound quality throughout was excellent. Although I was a little puzzled by the four names in the programmes listed as Additional Vocals, I would have expected the cast of fifteen to have coped.
This show has one main advantage over the others of its type, which is not only is the music well known but the star who performed it is the lead. This makes the fact that it does not work seem even more tragic. But the Essex fans will ensure the production no doubt plays to packed houses during the tour.
John Dixon
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