Matinee idol - Will Young

Published Thursday 28 December 2006 at 17:15 by Liz Thomas

From reality TV singer to Noel Coward leading man, Will Young has followed his heart back to the stage.

It is a predictably grey, grizzly day in Manchester and as I step into my taxi it’s clear the driver’s mood is no better, grumbling as we meander towards the Royal Exchange he wonders abruptly why I am going there so early in the morning.

Scrambling for change I explain that I am having a chat with pop idol and thespian du jour Will Young. Without missing a beat the driver visibly lifts a little and says ‘oh yes,’ before gruffly belting out “I think I better leave right now” as he drives away.

Believe it or not that song is close to four years old now and Young himself has been around for half a decade. To his credit he has stayed the distance, while many of his reality talent show contemporaries have fallen away.

This I suspect is in part to do with the fact that he is something of a subtle chameleon, today he is sat opposite me looking every inch a engrossed actor rather than say, a prince of pop.

“I don’t always look like this,” he says peering at the face made up to be more akin to the precocious Nicky in Noel Coward’s The Vortex. On the surface this is an inspired piece of casting, Young could have been made for twenties high society. But this is his first major theatre role and no easy ride.

“I am really excited and totally petrified,” he admits wringing his hands for a moment before catching himself. A little more decisively he adds: “But if you are going to do new things you have to take the bull by the horns and get on with it. I’ve always done that with my music, so I’m not going to shy away now.”

This is the show that first made Coward’s name as a playwright and catapulted him into the limelight both here and in America. At 27 [28 in January] Young is a little older as he takes the mantle but all too aware that this is an exciting opportunity to prove his talent in a new field.

“The offer came and when I read the script I knew this could be something special,” he says. “I wanted to get it right.”

“Nicky is an engrossing role but there is so much depth to it - he is like so many different people in one play. Actually I feel like I’m getting to know a new friend - a secret friend that no one else sees. I feel slightly mad - but I love him already.”

Young exploded into popular consciousness in 2002 winning ITV hit Pop Idol, and while the likes of Gareth Gates, Hear’Say, Steve Brookstein have faltered, he has soldiered on.

The great thing with Young is that although he and his music may morph from pop to soul to funk and back again - the change is not so drastic that his fanbase won’t come with him. Indeed many argued that while he won praise for his first film role in 1930’s set musical comedy Mrs Henderson Presents, he perhaps broadly played a war time version of himself. He later muses that this latest move into theatre is probably his biggest leap.

“After Mrs Henderson - I realised that I really enjoyed it and got good feedback. Actually I think it was Bob Hoskins who said to me to go and do theatre. It just made sense - I think there is something inside you that drives you to make these decisions. Of course I have days when I think - ‘what am I doing? I should be at home’. But this is a great opportunity to use what I have in a different way to when I am singing.”

It has become the vogue in recent years for productions to draw in the punters with a bankable, fashionable name, I wonder if people might assume he is just another on the bandwagon - would that annoy him?

“That’s part of the reason I’ve come up here and not just done a show in London,” he informs me archly, ‘to allow myself the space and time to concentrate on it and do it properly. But also let’s get things in perspective - hopefully what will happen is a whole load of people who enjoy my songs, who have never had much knowledge of Noel Coward will come along and experience a play like The Vortex.

“It might have been written in the twenties but the themes are still very modern. I still identify with it. The English inhibitedness is still there and really, although things have changed I still think social class underlies so many issues in society now. Everyone is pretending in the play - and that is what people are like. I can relate to that.”

There is also the undercurrent of hedonism, homosexuality and drug abuse but Young argues that the subtext is less interesting than the relationships in the play.

“I didn’t go into this thinking I am a gay actor. I don’t think I’m playing a gay role. Yes, there is a subtext but it could just be bohemian - that is not the draw. His relationship with his mother is fascinating, and quite perverse. An overpowering mother and a father that is just bullied - I’ve seen that a lot with friends. It’s really sad when the father just doesn’t interact with the kids. So if you like that is one of my ways in.

“But I do think it is an interesting thing when you are gay and know it from a young age. You dip out of things - because you don’t go after girls - you get a chance to watch other people. I don’t know - maybe you get a chance to see more of life on the outside looking in and that lends itself to acting and recreating that perception in your work.”

Given the rather small space the production is being performed in - the furthest any member of the audience will be from the cast is around 10 metres - with some seats as close as a metre. He laughs wickedly when I say it is rumoured that some fans have been calling up asking for seats in his eyeline.

“I’m not worried about how small it will be - hopefully that will make it seem more intense. Don’t you think?”

He does that a lot - asks my view - or returns a question with a question so that the whole things seems more like a friendly chat over breakfast with an old friend.

The hand-wringing is a distant memory, now he is relaxed and opinionated offering a morsel of analysis or a considered musing as we talk. “The thing I love about Noel Coward,” he says waving his cigarette if not flamboyantly then getting there, ” is that like Oscar Wilde he was a great social commentator. He made intelligent comments - not just in his plays but also in his performances. He pushed it just enough to be risqué, to allude to things, but for a time the housewives still loved him. A bit like Kenneth Williams or Larry Grayson.”

He giggles as I point out that the British love affair with camp has led us to Graham Norton. “Camp entertainers are naughty and vibrant - but harmless - that’s the appeal.”

This chat is all taking place against the backdrop of the end of The X Factor and this year Leona Lewis is living the dream. And while it is a different animal to Pop Idol I ask him now if these shows really deliver what they are promising in the long term.

“Any entry point into the industry is legitimate,” he says, “How could it not be, what counts is what you do afterwards. You know if you look back on some people’s careers, they may have started out doing a Frosties advert, but t is how you manage things once you get that break.”

“I took the time out to make sure the second album was strong. I had a great producer and good management and things fell into place. I just felt I still had things to say - I didn’t want to just disappear but I knew it couldn’t just be more of the same.”

Young is so driven it’s almost tangible, there is clearly a lot he wants to do, and he talks of his five year plan without any trace of mischief. He tells me that for him evolving as a performer is just making sure you fulfil your potential.

He adds: “You need life lessons - I couldn’t just keep on churning out the same stuff. Doing different things from the album, to the tour and the film over the past few years has made me really happy. I think each bit enriches the next. I feel like I could write a whole bloody album about this play. I hate the idea of being restricted.”

Educated at Wellington College and with a politics degree from Exeter the pop star says that his original plan was to go to drama school at 13. He actually only arrived at Arts Ed in west London as postgraduate but lasted only a term before the whirlwind of reality television whisked him to stardom. Does he wonder where he would be if the show hadn’t come along?

“I would have done all three years at Arts - and probably chosen acting over musicals. It’s weird how I’ve ended up here anyway.”

Yes, perhaps, but he is considerably richer and more in demand for the detour.

He’s keen to stress that he is looking at each thing as a project, explaining that he isn’t making a career change and that his next album will come when he is ready.

“I am doing the usual things - seeing casting directors. I really want to see what comes from this - I hope people see the ability and the fact that I am taking it seriously. Because I am my own boss in my music it means that I can be flexible - so if something comes up I can move things around to do it.”

Young says he also wants to do more films, as well as another two albums, he then adds quitting smoking to the wish list. I ask him what he would do if the phone suddenly stopped ringing and the offers dried up.

He’s a little more subdued now and the hand-wringing returns: “I do think about it all finishing,” he admits, “But I think I would be alright. I’m used to a certain way of life where I am my own boss and even this is new for me, coming into a show where I am not in control and having to turn up on time. Similarly I did this thing with the BBC where we are trekking for gorillas in the Congo - and it was a team effort.

I would find the rejection hard, but it would be ok because I don’t think I take the fame too seriously.”

Of course the phone isn’t going to stop ringing - he has too many plans for that. He wants to do Broadway at some point, but adds that his dream offer would be something new. Later Young whispers that he has an idea for his own show, but says he wants to use his choreographer and artistic director.

“My ideas are sexy, quite dark and very different. It is something I really want to do - if it works it will be something that I really feel from the heart.”

As soon as he tells me, he begins berating himself for fear of jinxing it. This seems a little silly considering how well his talent and single-mindedness has served him thus far.

He brightens: “You’re right. I think it helps if you can picture yourself doing something. I did that with the singing and the acting. I think I like the escapism - I find it hard sometimes being on stage and being I.

“I love the control you get of an audience - it is electric. Ha. That just sounds like I am on a power trip. Maybe that is it - I’m just a power hungry person and this is my way of getting it.”