David Essex

February 2010


My weekend
The weekend is all about catching up with friends and family.
On Saturday I’ll be up pretty early and I’ll have a look through emails and sort a bit of business out. I’ll probably watch a bit of football, go to Upton Park or check a game out on the telly if I’m working.
Sunday will be the papers, a bit of breakfast, get over and see one of the kids in the afternoon, then I’ll go to a local restaurant.
I like a pub lunch as well but I’m not really a drinker so it’s more the lunches rather than going off to a pub for the evening.
I’m not much of a cook. It has to be visual. Anything in a frying pan I can cope with but if it disappears in to an oven I don’t quite know what’s going on. So I’ve never mastered the famous Sunday roast.
Sport is a big passion of mine. I’ve played a lot of football and cricket over the years. I still suffer as a West Ham fan. I do have a soft spot for Notts Forest. I think teams like that should be in the top flight.
It’s more watching sport than playing these days. I’ve three sons and they sometimes drag me in to the garden. And they’re pretty good. The twins are at West Ham Academy and they played cricket for Surrey when they were kids. The older boy played for Surrey too but he’s not much of a footballer. Just don’t tell him I said that.
There are no TV programmes I have to see. I’ll watch news programmes and documentaries. I watch Al Jazeera a lot. I think it gives you a different perspective. It’s kind of interesting to switch to the BBC for a slight variation on a particular story.
I went to see Inglourious Basterds at the cinema and I liked that. I saw The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, that was quite moving. And I saw Up on a plane but I didn’t have my 3D glasses with me (laughs). I get quite teary with things. I cried watching Finding Nemo. I’m a bit of soft touch really.
I prefer theatre to film and that relationship between the live audience and the live players. That it lives for that performance, then changes for the next one.
I don’t do gyms or anything like that. I’m always racing about anyway marching from one meeting to the next or from one rehearsal to another. That keeps me fairly active.
I’ve never been a great reader of books. I wish I was but my concentration starts to drift after about eight pages. I think that’s all down to my teacher back at secondary school who made us read Silas Marner (by George Eliot). That turned me off books. Which is ironic because I wrote my autobiography all by myself and it was a No. 1 bestseller. Maybe I should read more.
I’m not a big fan of concerts either, ironically. I do listen to music at home. I’m forced to with two sons bashing about but I’m not really aware of what’s in the charts to be honest.
I’ve got four children. The last time I counted anyway (laughs). The twins are 21. The other two from the other marriage are in their thirties.
I’ve three grandchildren. The eldest, he’s six, I’ve taken him out to Hamley’s, The London Eye, The Lion King, a trip on a boat down the Thames... I did get him to the London Museum but that only lasted ten minutes because he kept misbehaving.

David Essex appears on the Once In A Lifetime Tour 2010 alongside The Osmonds, Leo Sayer and Les McKeown’s Legendary Bay City Rollers, which comes to the Trent FM Arena on June 29. Tickets are £36.50, call 08444 124624.