Dave Willetts (born 24 June 1952) is an English singer and actor known for having leading roles in West End musicals. Early life Born in Marston Green, Birmingham, in 1952 and then brought up in Acocks Green. He first went to Cottesbrooke Infants primary school and later to Sheldon Heath Comprehensive (now known as King Edward VI Sheldon Heath Academy). His father worked at Rover. He has completed a Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme programme. After leaving school at 16, he joined Girling Brakes as an apprentice, in Cwmbran, Wales. He then moved to another Girlings plant in Pontypool, with his then girlfriend Lyn. One night he went out with workmates to see “No, No Nanette” by the New Venture Players, an amateur drama group based in Newport. based at the Dolman Theatre. Despite rarely ever visiting a theatre, impressed by the play, he became interested in amateur dramatics. He auditioned for the New Venture Players next production, added finally landed a role. After 10 years in South Wales, he returned to Birmingham to take up a managerial post. He then worked as a quality manager for British Leyland, an engineering company producing components for the automotive industry in the Midlands.sheridan engineering But he also joined the Leamington and Warwick Operatic society to later star in “Music Man”. He then played 'Charlie Gordon' in amateur production of Charles Strouse musical, Flowers for Algernon, at the Priory Theatre in Kenilworth. Peter McGarry, the theatre critic of the Coventry Evening Telegraph gave him a rave review of his performance. He then came to the attention of Bob Hamlyn, artistic director of the Belgrade Theatre, in Coventry who cast him as "third flunky from the left" in another show by Strouse, Annie. It was at this time, while Willetts was in his thirties, that he began his meteoric rise to the top, with the support of his wife. He decided to give up his management career and became an 'actor', while working part-time as a waiter and his wife as a childminder. Life and career Director Trevor Nunn put Willetts into the chorus of the original London production of Les Misérables and within a year he was understudy to Colm Wilkinson in the lead role of Jean Valjean, which Willetts eventually took over when Wilkinson left in 1986 to join the Broadway company. In 1987, when Michael Crawford departed London for the US