STILL shooting their Poison Arrow after nearly 40 years, ABC are touring their classic 1982 album The Lexicon Of Love, backed by 51 musicians including Oscar-winning conductor Anne Dudley. Here Martin Fry takes The Look of Love back at his life...

Known for his trademark gold suits and hit songs like Poison Arrow and All Of My Heart singer Martin Fry was the epitome of eighties glamour.

Nearly 40 years on, Martin is keenly aware of how much the album means to fans, saying: “You’re playing with people’s memories. Everyone will have gone through a lot – kids, illness, divorce, keeping up mortgage payments – and our songs go alongside all of that. There’s always something to learn from these songs, and they still sound fresh.”

Only one of the album’s nine songs, the frantic 4Ever 2Gether, gives Martin trouble to play live now. He laughs: “I wouldn’t have made that song so rapid if I’d known I’d still be singing it in 2019! Then again, how often do you get to hear lyrics like ‘I’ve thrown the marriage proposal down the waste disposal’? Preposterous rhyming schemes have always been part of my work. For years, I tried to get the word ‘umbrella’ into a song. I was heartbroken when Rihanna showed up with Umbrella.”

From its dramatic sleeve of Martin dressed like James Bond rescuing a fainting woman, The Lexicon Of Love seems steeped in luxury. But it was made in a rundown studio in East London where, as Martin says, “There wasn’t even a tap, just a pair of pliers to turn the sink on.”

Imposingly tall at 6ft 3ins, still trim and debonair, it’s hard to imagine Martin and his ABC bandmates in such squalor. He recalls: “The area is gentrified now, but you took your life in your hands going out around there back then. One reason the album is so good is because there was nowhere to go! It was a really small room, and there was only one studio in the building. You had to focus on the music, because you weren’t going to bump into any other bands like Depeche Mode to chat to at the vending machine.”

Recording the album, Martin met Anne Dudley, who went on to win an Oscar in 1998 for the score to The Full Monty as well as composing the music for the film of Les Miserables and BBC1’s Poldark. “Anne is a brilliant musician and so fearless,” Martin enthuses. “When we made Lexicon, we realised All Of My Heart needed strings. Anne put her hand up and said ‘I’ll do it!’ She went home and had it done in a couple of days. Anne is so good at going ‘Right, how do we make this work?’ and she’s very understated too – if you go to her house, there’s an Oscar in the loo!”

Martin believes The Lexicon Of Love succeeded because it sounded so different to ABC’s musical peers. “I’d grown up on The Sex Pistols,” he explains. “Writing love songs was cheeky for a band at that time. We were trying to be emotional and hyper-romantic.”

He admits there was competitiveness with other bands in the ‘80s, saying: “It got harder to socialise with other musicians once we were successful, because everyone wanted to be No 1. When you’re kicking it on Top Of The Pops and your record is climbing the chart, people hate you!”

In 1986, Martin was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Then newly married to wife Julie, he beat the disease and the couple have two grown-up children, Louis and Nancy. Martin stays fit as a keen cyclist. “I’ve had a few close shaves, healthwise,” reveals Martin. “But my life has been a great ride. The last 15 years have been phenomenal, getting another shot at the pop life. It’s not like I’m obsessing about wanting the world to be 1983 again. When I’m riding my titanium bike up a mountain, I’m thinking about something else.”

Martin is currently writing more ABC songs, which may form another sequel to The Lexicon Of Love. For he still enjoys writing romantic songs, viewing The Lexicon Of Love II as another angle on the original album’s young person’s guide to love: “The elation, sadness and euphoria when you feel strongly about someone, there are infinite angles to explore there.” ,” smiles Martin. “I’m like Netflix – someone could commission me to do 36 episodes of The Lexicon Of Love. So far there’s only two. Time moves on, so roll your sleeves up and do it.”

n ABC The Lexicon Of Love is at Bournemouth Pavilion theatre on Monday, April 8.