David Benson

AN OBSESSION with dead entertainers doesn't sound like the healthiest of interests for a teenage boy.

But in actor David Benson's case, an early love of Fred Astaire provided the foundations for his entire career.

Best known for his revealing tribute show to Carry On actor Kenneth Williams, Think No Evil of Me, Benson's latest one man production sees him plunge even further into the world of deceased celebrities.

In Star Struck, he imagines being the main guest at a party made up of some of the 20th century's best loved entertainers, including Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Groucho Marx and Orson Welles.

He devised the show with fellow actor David Sant as they toured the country with theatre group Peepolykus.

"We spent a lot of time talking about our heroes and the people we were both obsessed by. This evolved into an idea in which I would meet all my heroes at a party," says Benson.

"I open the show by talking to the audience about the people I was obsessed by and then I go into this dream sequence where I'm mingling with all these stars. Once I meet them, of course, it all goes horribly wrong."

Benson's approach is to peel back the layers of fame to expose the complex and vulnerable human being underneath.

"Most of the people in this show turn out to be a nightmare. There's one point where Frank Sinatra and I seem to be getting on and suddenly he flips his lid when he finds out I'm gay.

"Judy Garland turns out to be a complete emotional cripple who tries to seduce me. Noel Coward is very nice, but he tries to seduce me as well. They're all a bit unstable."

The suspect nature of hero worship was brought home to him after an encounter with one of his idols - famous eccentric and gay icon Quentin Crisp.

"I met Quentin in New York in about 1995. I told him he was one of my great role models, but he was quite dismissive. He said you should never try to be like anybody else - you should only ever be like yourself."

While most teenagers in the 70s idolised David Cassidy or Starsky and Hutch, Benson was shut up in his bedroom dreaming of being Fred Astaire.

"I spent more time in my bedroom than anywhere else. I could lock my door and completely divorce myself from reality.

"Other kids used to play football or watch Magpie. I always found the world around me a bit threatening so maybe I retreated into the past as an escape."

Still, he came good in the end. Think No Evil of Me, inspired by Benson having a story read on national TV by Kenneth Williams after winning a Jackanory writing competition, is one of the most

celebrated one man shows of the last decade.

"I didn't want Kenneth Williams to read my story. I was already struggling with my own sexuality at the age of 13 or 14, so I didn't want to be associated with the campest man in Britain," says Benson, who did a similar thing with Frankie Howerd a few years later.

Think No Evil was Benson's way of 'exorcising Kenneth Williams', although, ironically, he is now more associated with him than ever.

Despite that, he's still not sick of him. "He pops up very, very briefly in this new show. He does a duet with Frankie Howerd which always goes down very well."

I ask Benson which dead celebrity he imagines he would have got on with best.

"I would love to have met Harpo Marx. He's not in the show but he would have been the most wonderful person. He seems to have been very content and happy with what he did."

David Benson performs Star Struck at The Tower, Winchester on 25 July at 8pm, in a double bill with Marilyn Monroe impersonator Helen Kane. Tickets: £8. Box office: 01962 867986.