Passions: John Otway’s dedication to follow his rock dreams is so inspiring

Monday night at Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and John Otway is headbutting the microphone stand. Repeatedly.

It’s the finale of a show that was impossible not to love thanks entirely to the endearing enthusiasm radiated by the 70-year-old; a man who dreamed of being a pop star at the age of nine, and is still living the dream.

I came late to the Otway show, via his documentary Rock and Roll’s Greatest Failure: Otway the Movie on Netflix.

As failures go, he’s packed a heck of a lot into 50 years of gigging and recording, and embarked on adventures that would be the envy of any wild-eyed innocent.

Otway was a one-hit wonder for 25 years with Really Free - his appearance with the long suffering Wild Willy Barrett on The Old Grey Whistle Test ended in painful disaster that rather set the tone for his career - until he triumphed again in 2002 with the pastiche disco track, Bunsen Burner.

But with a fanbase happy to put their shoulder to the wheel for his adventures, however daft they may sound, Otway has achieved more than most and turned failure into a success story.

He’s packed out the Albert Hall, taken a 1000-strong arm of fans to record in Abbey Road, and saw his film premiere in Leicester Square where the letters spelling out ‘Odeon’ were replaced with O-T-W-A-Y.

At the heart of his career is a remarkably self deprecating approach which simply endears him to fans old and new. He’s still that nine-year-old wannabe rock star at heart.

I first saw him playing live in a launderette in Durham that doubles as a gig venue at night, and for his Voodoo Rooms gig, some folk had travelled up from London just to join in with the call outs that are part of a show that sees him do Gloria Gaynor’s anthem I Will Survive in the style of Bob Dylan, and then Bachman Turner Overdrive’s You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet with Attila the Stockbroker repeating each line in German. Why? Well, why not.

Everyone should Otway at least once in their life. He’s testament to belief in following your dreams.

Allan Crow is Editor of the Fife Free Press, sister title of The Scotsman