Barbra and her funny girl fans: David Lister on the devotion that makes women pay a tenth of their annual wages to hear Streisand sing

NEXT WEEK Ruth Davison will spend 10 per cent of her annual salary. She is going to see Barbra Streisand sing. Miss Davison, a clerk in a copyright office, has bought seats for all four concerts at Wembley Arena, at pounds 260 a ticket.

'I sold some shares,' said Miss Davison, 'and thank heavens for credit cards. It's going to be the highlight of the year.'

Anyway it is less than she spent on flying to Las Vegas to see Streisand's dollars 1,000-a-ticket comeback shows there three months ago, or on a Beverly Hills political fund-raising show that she flew out to California for. It was there that Miss Davison, 32, had a privilege accorded to few fans. She met and spoke with Streisand. 'I said I'd come all the way from England. She said 'Oh, good' and smiled. That acknowledgment made it worth the money.'

Barbra Streisand last sang in England in 1966. She was playing in the West End musical Funny Girl. She was 24 and ticket prices were two pounds five shillings ( pounds 2.25).

She sings at Wembley Arena later this month. On her instructions it will be carpeted (to make it more intimate, say her management; to keep draughts away from her, say the gossips). Ticket prices start at pounds 50 and rise to pounds 260, the highest ever charged for non-charity concerts in Britain. .

So far only one eyebrow is known to have been raised at the fees she is earning from her comeback concerts. 'Why should they pay you that much to sing?' Streisand was asked by the only woman who could and inevitably would ask her such a question, her mother, Diana. 'I guess they like me,' Barbra snapped back.

Barbra Streisand may be the highest paid singer in the world, a regular visitor to the White House, a tireless fund- raiser with a personal fortune of dollars 120m ( pounds 80m), who on a whim sells her dollars 15m Malibu home for charity. But she gets stage fright and gave up mainstream concerts for 27 years; she is unlucky in love and made a fool of herself sending roses each day to a Wimbledon champion younger than her son; and she has a mother who still makes her feel insecure just as she did in Brooklyn 40 years ago.

That, though, is part of the attraction. As with Judy Garland, the mixture of sensational voice and star quality, combined with vulnerability in her private life, give Streisand a charisma that can sell even the most outrageously priced seats.

All 44,000 tickets for Streisand's four British dates sold out within hours of the concerts being announced. Wembley had to install extra phones as it took 53,000 calls in the first half hour of tickets going on sale. And 80 per cent of callers wanted the pounds 260 top price seats.

The assumption that, as with Sinatra, most of the fans will be well-heeled seems to be wrong though. Many, like Miss Davison, are prepared to blow all their savings to see one of the last remaining global superstars.

'Many of our 2,000 subscribers are going to all four concerts,' says Lynne Pounder, the Durham-based writer who edits All About Barbra, the appreciation society magazine. 'One woman said she'd remortgage her house if she had to.'

'I can't think of anything I would rather spend my money on,' says Miss Davison. 'I've spent thousands and thousands over the years. Any spare money I've got goes on Barbra. No one else can sing like her. It touches you deep inside and makes you want to get to know her. I feel she is an old friend now. She's very inspirational to me. Even against the odds you can make it if you believe in yourself.

'She is very insecure. That comes over strongly to me. I feel I can see what's going on inside. And she's done a lot for women. Kicking down the doors for female directors. She was one of the very first.'

In fact Streisand's struggle against the odds was not quite as traumatic as her fans would have you believe. Her father, an English teacher, died when she was 15 months old. Her stepfather did not care for her and her mother gave her little encouragement. 'My mother never said to me, 'You're smart, you're pretty, you can do what you want',' says Streisand now. But that's not exactly child abuse.

And while she was not conventionally attractive, success actually came fairly rapidly. She was spotted after winning a talent show as a teenager and had a recording contract and was starring in Funny Girl by the age of 19.

Her failed marriage to actor Elliot Gould and nine-year relationship with producer Jon Peters, and intimate friendships with former Canadian premier Pierre Trudeau, ice-cream heir Richard Baskin and latterly tennis star Andre Agassi, all give an added dimension for her army of female fans.

But men, too, have emptied their pockets for the concerts. Lewin Donnelly, a publishing assistant, is also going to all four concerts. 'I haven't seen her sing before. I just really admire her. Her motivations. I find it hard to talk about it really.'

But then obsessive fans of superstars can become almost bashfully tongue-tied over their idols. A more expressive reaction to the Streisand phenomenon came from the lyricist Don Black, who recently visited her Hollywood home with Andrew Lloyd Webber and Christopher Hampton, the Sunset Boulevard writers, to discuss adapting a hit from the musical for her.

Recalling it, Black said: 'I thought she was wonderful, just like a big sister. There was nothing starry about her. Then she started singing unaccompanied and it was like liquid diamonds. You think it can't be fair that someone has a voice like this.'

(Photograph omitted)