David Essex at 60 is still turning heads. With his close-cropped hair and dapper white beard, this East End boy looks for all the world like a retired diplomat or a member of the aristocracy attending Glyndebourne or the Henley Regatta. He may now be in his 61st year but David is still forever young.

"Inside I feel about 23," he declares.

David was recently at Wycombe Swan staring in the musical Aspects of Love. He returns to the theatre in a live concert singing hits including Hold Me Close, Gonna Make You a Star, Rock On, and with tracks from his latest album.

David is still a much sought-after actor, performer, a songwriter, a recording artist, a record producer and an enduring heartthrob for ladies of a certain age and their daughters.

"I am trying to do less," he protests, unconvincingly. "And I hate the idea of outstaying my welcome, of hanging on too long so that people get fed up with me."

Whenever David does decide for the pipe, the slippers and the bus pass, he'll be able to look back on an extraordinary career. He has written and/or recorded a string of hit records in the UK and the US, chalking up an amazing 23 singles in the British Top 30 alone. Rock On topped the US charts and established him in American show business while David starred in both That'll Be The Day and its sequel Stardust. He enjoyed a long run in the West End as Jesus in Godspell and both wrote and starred in Mutiny. His Byronic good looks drove the hordes of his female fans into near hysteria and yet David maintains - and this time you're inclined to believe him - that he never wanted it to happen this way.

"Music has always been my first love - there's a spirituality about it - and I always feel more comfortable with music around me. I never wanted to be famous - that's why I chose to be the drummer so I could hide behind the cymbals. It sounds very worthy but I found the fame and the adulation slightly embarrassing. As for girls, it was the roadies who had all the fun-not me. I'd be marched offstage by the security men after a concert and thrown into a hotel suite with the screams of the audience still ringing in my ears."

David remembers one dramatic night in Liverpool when the audience reaction threatened to get out of hand.

"I'd done two shows at the Liverpool Empire but the first house refused to go home and insisted on staying outside the theatre. So when the time came to leave, the police suggested that they disguised me as another copper but I forgot to change my conspicuous red shoes and I was spotted by the crowd. The police then picked me up and a police sergeant virtually used me as a battering-ram to force a way through the fans."

David reckons that his survival in the music business is down to good management and to his long apprenticeship in the world of entertainment before stardom came calling.

"I was fortunate in every way," he says. "Suddenly I was experiencing a triple whammy of success. I was starring in the West End in Godspell, That'll Be The Day was doing very well in the cinema and Rock On was at the top of the American charts. But it all started to happen for me when I'd been in the music business for the best part of ten years. I'd started as a drummer in a blues band when I was 14 and for most of the next decade, I was living hand to mouth in a succession of B & Bs or in the back of a Dormobile. I often wish that I'd savoured my success a bit more.

"I remember that I was filming That'll Be The Day in Manchester and I had just finished a night shoot with Keith Moon of The Who and we got back to the hotel to learn that I was No.1 in America. I couldn't really take it in and it was Keith who insisted on ordering the champagne, saying that The Who had never managed to do what I'd just achieved."

Perhaps David's continued success in what can be a fickle business is due to his disinclination to dwell in the past.

"Perhaps I should learn from George and start to enjoy the moment a bit more but I've always been a person who gets a buzz from the possibilities which the future holds. I have always been inclined to say that what I'm doing now is all very nice but I'd still rather know what's happening next."

Looking back on a career that has lasted nearly 50 years, David puts much of it down to self-belief.

"I've always been my own man and so I've been able to do exactly what I wanted to do. I turned down a contract with Columbia. I've never gone to openings or parties and I've never liked Los Angeles. I'm sure that there are nice people there but unfortunately I've never met any. I don't do much television either. I did do an episode of Heartbeat just to please my mother since it was one of her favourite programmes. Of course, it's easier to be picky about what you do when you have a few bob in the bank but I still think that playing in the blues band is the best."

In the wake of his mother's death earlier this year, David went on a nostalgic pilgrimage to the East End of his childhood.

"I spent the day there, visiting my parents' graves, wandering through Canning Town and then crossing the river and spending some time in Greenwich. When I was a boy, the East End was much more unified and, like society in general, it was a much more caring place. Growing up in the East End was like being part of a family. When I'd go to watch West Ham at Upton Park, dockers on the terraces would be happy to pass kids like me down to the front so we could get a better view of the game."

David is deceptively laid-back about what he does.

"A cup of tea and a cigarette - that's my idea of a warmup before the show". He admits to only one ambition in the musical theatre - to play the title role of Sweeney Todd, the avenging Demon Barber of Fleet Street, in Stephen Sondheim's gory musical. But would his faithful female fans be happy to see him wielding the razor to such bloody effect? Silly question David Essex Live in Concert is at Wycombe Swan on Friday, June 6. Tickets: 01494 512000.If you missed David in Aspects of Love in High Wycombe go to www.reallyuseful.co.uk to catch the rest of the tour

2:05pm Friday 16th May 2008

Print

Email this