Barnum star Brian Conley’s a hit without a safety net!

Although Brian Conley always played the class clown at school, he never thought he would end up juggling and walking a high wire for a living.

The presenter and entertainer used humour as a defence mechanism as a youngster to deflect from his, at that point, undiagnosed dyslexia.

Forty years on and the stage star is risking life and limb every night in Barnum, one of the most spectacular touring productions the UK has ever seen.

He plays PT Barnum, the showman and businessman behind the Greatest Show on Earth.

“I’m doing stilt walking, juggling, fire eating and then there’s the walk across a wire eight feet up with no net,” Brian said.

“I went to Circus School two weeks after I finished panto in January and began learning. I practised three times a week. After six weeks I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.

“I broke my finger, I needed physio on my feet and we thought I had broken my ankle. It was just badly sprained, but I had to spend two weeks of rehearsals in crutches.

“At 53 I never dreamed I would land something like this, but I love a challenge. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life.”

After years as a fixture on TV as a presenter, chat show host and comedian, he’s now better known as a musical theatre star. But audiences are likely to be surprised at his new role.

“I’m the bloke who says, ‘It’s a puppet’, the audience don’t expect me to do this. When I fall off the wire, I’m really falling off. It’s not part of the show.

“I fell off three times in one show recently, but nailed it on the fourth. It’s not a circus show, though. It’s a love story and a tale about a man’s determination.

“I’ve been doing this for 41 years I got my Equity Card when I was 12 and this is the best show I’ve ever been in. It’s better than Jolson, Oliver, all of them.”

Brian never had aspirations as a youngster to do what he’s doing now. In fact, school was a struggle.

“I couldn’t keep up. I was confused and put in remedial class, so I became the joker and made everyone laugh.

“It was only in my twenties that I was diagnosed with dyslexia. My reading is pretty good but my writing isn’t.

“I couldn’t spell my wife’s name when I met her. She asked me for an autograph and when she said her name was Anne-Marie, I just thought, ‘Oh no, that’s a long one’.

“I do a lot of writing, but I do it phonetically. It’s not a big deal today, but when I was at school and you couldn’t read or write, you were just thick.

“One of my daughters is dyslexic and she’s getting totally different support from what I received. But I embraced my dyslexia.

“It made me who I am and I pursed this career, otherwise I would probably have followed my dad and become a London cabbie.”

Brian, who was once the highest-paid male TV personality in the UK, married Anne-Marie in 1993. They have two daughters, Amy, who is 17, and 12-year-old Lucy.

Despite the long tours Barnum is scheduled for a year and Jolson was three years they are a close-knit family.

“If it wasn’t something of this standard then I might be frustrated at being out on the road for so long,” he admitted.

“But we have a lovely friend who looks after the kids so my wife can come and see me whenever she wants.

“When I was last up in Edinburgh I brought the girls along and we did all the tourist attractions. We even visited the caf where JK Rowling started writing Harry Potter.”

Lucy is following in her dad’s footsteps.

“She’s done some radio and appeared as Tommy Cooper’s daughter in the recent biopic they made on his life. I often take her to auditions. I was a bit dubious at first, and I’ve never pushed her into it.”

For Brian, he has no ambitions left. He’s gone further than he ever imagined possible.

“There’s no big masterplan. I didn’t believe I would play any of these characters. Barnum was the first show I ever saw in the West End. I never thought all these years later I would be in it.”

Edinburgh Playhouse, Oct 28Nov 1, His Majesty’s Aberdeen Nov 1822, Glasgow’s King’s next spring.