Essex comes to Manchester

Yes David Essex returned to the Palace on Monday with his own show "All the Fun of the Fair",a year after his hit tour with Aspects of Love.

This show as you can probably guess is set around a traveling fair,where recently widowed Levi Lee (David Essex)struggles with his wife's tragic death, the advances of longtime family friend and newly divorced Rosa,not to mention his teenage son's tangled love life, all this and the prospect of another lean winter means Levi is gonna have to keep his wits about him.

Directed by Nikoli Foster who directed Aspects for Essex and joined by David Burrows who was also in the cast. He plays Harvey the father of Jack's forbidden love interest Alice. Debuting as Jack is local lad Paul-Ryan Carberry from Salford where he studied at Pendleton Collage.
In My opinion a fine debut it was too.
Now the music we all know, the hits and more of the man himself. What pleasantly surprised me was how easily the songs lent themselves to being adapted for a theatre production. Unlike so many Jukebox musicals where the story has to fit the music here the music and the story went together hand in hand. I think with just a slight reworking this show could turn into a real long term winner even without Mr Essex in the lead role.I liked it and if it comes back to our fair city I will go and see it again.