Alfie Boe

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:35

My Castaway this week is the singer Alfie Bow. The power and purity of his voice have been enjoyed by audiences from the Royal Opera House to Broadway, and if Cameron Mackintosh is looking for a good tale for his next West End Smash, he need look no further than the story of my Castaway's life to date. One of nine children born in Blackpool, he left school at fifteen, worked as a mechanic before being talent spotted by a big time director, who whisked him away to perform Laboem in New York.

Presenter1:04

where he fell in love. Since then hit records and sell out concerts have been the order of the day. But, he says, you've got to remember to keep a sense of proportion about the whole thing.

Presenter1:15

We're just singing songs. We're not going to change the world. Well, maybe not, Alphibo, but certainly your world has changed a lot. I'm wondering that when you sing, as you often do, the Impossible Dream, it must hold a special resonance for you.

Alfie Boe1:27

It it does. I mean, uh, singing is such a wonderful gift to have. And when I first started to sing at the age of um fourteen, I didn't think that it was really anything I could make a living at, you know. Growing up as a kid in uh Lancashire, you you're told to either

Alfie Boe1:43

become a fisherman or join the army or something like that, you know, and and and so you don't really have the options of of studying music or using an ability, using a talent. No, I I do look every day at what I'm doing and and think I'm so lucky.

Presenter1:58

One of the very distinctive things about your working life, as I said just a moment ago, is that to sing at the great opera houses, the Royal Opera House and so on, English National Opera, Welsh Opera, and then to go on to Broadway and and the West End, there are maybe a very few performers who've tried it, and it has to be said most of them have come acropper. You you haven't, you've done it very successfully. Do you feel there's a degree of schizophrenia in your working life?

Speaker 22:07

Uh

Alfie Boe2:07

Yeah.

Speaker 22:07

Uh

Speaker 22:15

Yeah.

Alfie Boe2:15

I mean how

Alfie Boe2:21

And yeah.

Alfie Boe2:23

I think, yeah, uh it's uh I'm very fortunate to have been able to, for the sake of using the word crossover to a degree, you know. I mean my it's a bit of a crossover artist. To be honest, I see crossover in a different way than than than a lot of people do. I I don't see it as crossing over the repertoire, I see it as crossing over the audiences, to different audiences. It's not the grandeur of the building or the amount of people that it holds, you know, it's the actual people that are in there that that count, you know.

Presenter2:29

Yeah.

Presenter2:30

It's a bit of a dirty word, isn't it? Crossover art.

Presenter2:42

Yeah.

Presenter2:51

It's interesting you mention the audiences. There was one critic, I think it was an opera critic, who said, Your downfall would be your fans. What did he make of that? What was he getting at?

Alfie Boe3:00

Yeah.

Alfie Boe3:02

Um, I think, you know, he's obviously a purist when it came to um music and I'd just finished um performing Le Miserab at the Auto Arena for the twenty fifth anniversary. I think two days later I had to start rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Opera House.

Presenter3:18

Go ahead.

Alfie Boe3:19

This guy was sat reviewing the show and obviously didn't like the reaction that I got from the fans that had joined me from the Les Miz audience, you know, so. What were they doing that was They just cheered and took photographs and as I took went out to take my bow so I think the purists out there didn't like that but you know I'm not bothered really about that. The fact is that I pleased

Alfie Boe3:42

My audience.

Presenter3:43

Well, I think you're going to please a lot of people with your musical choices. Really diverse, really interesting, but not any high opera. No, no, no. Why is that?

Alfie Boe3:50

No, no, no.

Alfie Boe3:53

I um I never go to the opera. Is that I I can admit this now, but I never go to as soon as I'm on a desert island, I can actually say I never go to the opera.

Presenter3:59

I never go to the opera.

Alfie Boe4:01

Easily for that. I don't I don't know. I go there and I feel very uncomfy. I just feel like it's not my world. When I'm up there doing it, that's my world. That's what I really, uh, enjoy. But sitting in the audience and watching it, I'm

Alfie Boe4:16

Bored stiff. I really have to say, I really am. I could sit at home and listen to it on record and really appreciate the old classic singers, but when I go there it's just it it's just not my world. It's not my world.

Presenter4:28

As honest an explanation as I think I'm ever going to give from my pass away. And so let's go to the first track then. Tell me who it is and why you've chosen it.

Alfie Boe4:35

Huge, huge fan of this guy. He actually inspired me to discover different styles of music and um the history of folk music. So this is somebody that I really admire and um this is Bob Dylan.

Speaker 34:51

Mama take this match with me

Speaker 34:58

I can't use it anymore.

Speaker 35:05

Getting dark, too dark to see.

Speaker 35:12

Feel I'm knocking on heaven's door

Presenter5:21

That was Bob Dylan and Knocking on Heaven's Door. I'm wondering, Alfie, Bo, can you remember the first time that you sang?

Alfie Boe5:27

Um

Alfie Boe5:28

I think I was about

Alfie Boe5:30

Eight or nine.

Alfie Boe5:32

And I remember singing Mull of Kintaya.

Presenter5:34

That would have been number one, wouldn't it?

Alfie Boe5:35

It would have been about then, yeah, yeah. With a a cowboy hat on, a tennis racket in my hands and my clogs. You know, I looked to right side, you know

Presenter5:44

And what About the first time you sang in front of an audience.

Alfie Boe5:46

In front of an audience, um I was fourteen years old. I uh did um a songs from the show's production in my hometown in Fleetwood. All I had to do was sing one line, literally five seconds.

Alfie Boe6:01

In fact, I think I was sick at the back of the stage before I had to walk down and make my entrance to Sing the Line.

Presenter6:06

How are the nerves these days?

Alfie Boe6:07

Oh, they're all right. They're all they're okay. I'm nervous today, obviously. What do you nervous today? Well, I don't know. I d I do get.

Presenter6:12

I haven't seen it.

Alfie Boe6:15

Nervous about speaking in general. I could sing the whole programme for you. You can if you want.

Presenter6:18

You can if you want.

Alfie Boe6:20

Speaking's another thing, you know.

Presenter6:22

Now you performed at uh the O Two last year. It was the twenty fifth anniversary of Les Miz and it was two huge sell out performances there. How many people were you playing to each night?

Alfie Boe6:30

Um for the two performances there was about nineteen thousand each each show. So yeah, it was it was a good old crowd.

Presenter6:34

Boo!

Presenter6:37

Now of course you have the the entire cast supporting you, but what it what's it like to w walk out in front of nineteen thousand people who've paid good money to see you and expect a the performance of your lifetime?

Alfie Boe6:40

Yeah, but

Alfie Boe6:46

performance of your lifetime? Surprisingly, because I'd played the role in the in the theatre, I knew what I had to do for the character, I knew what I had to do musically and all that. But I have to say it was it was wonderful, you know, especially when I'm doing a solo and I'm I'm the only one on stage singing Bring him Home.

Presenter6:51

Yeah.

Presenter6:55

Yeah.

Speaker 36:55

Yeah.

Presenter7:03

Yeah.

Alfie Boe7:04

I remember being locked into this little world that I never really experienced before when I was singing that song, and all I was thinking about was the words.

Alfie Boe7:14

I wasn't even thinking technically about the the the way I was singing. I was just thinking what I was saying, who I was speaking to, and and communication really. I just felt everybody coming with me on that little journey.

Presenter7:29

Yeah, because your performances are are very they they hold a a sort of particularly intimate spirit. And that's very interesting to hear you describe it. It makes me wonder about Baz Luhrmann. Just to remind people, he is, I said, you know, a famous director. He was the big time director who was going to stage Laboem on Broadway, which in itself was unusual. And you went to audition. You gave very particular and literally individual performances for him. Can the circumstances of that audition were also unusual?

Alfie Boe7:36

Yeah.

Speaker 27:40

Yeah.

Speaker 27:42

Yeah.

Speaker 27:46

Come on board

Alfie Boe7:48

And he

Alfie Boe7:54

That's true.

Alfie Boe7:57

They were. I was working at the Royal Opera House at the time and I heard about the auditions, but the only time I could get to see him was while I was supposed to be watching Parsifal, a five-hour opera, at the Royal Opera House. It was part of the uh programme that I was on there to to sit through these operas and I used to sleep through most of them. I used to find an empty box, bring a pillow in from home, put it on the floor and go to sleep. That's so bad, I can't believe I just admitted that, but there you go. But in the interval, I think one of the intervals was about forty-five minutes long, and I ran, literally ran over Waterloo Bridge to this audition room, sang to Baz, just me and him, and then ran all the way back. I think he was the guy that actually taught me to bring people into my musical world, not to put out too much. I got a phone call that night asking me to go to New York to audition for it again, and so I made the trip, sang to him, and then got the job that night.

Presenter8:51

Close to them, yes.

Presenter9:02

Much more to come. Let's have some more music then.

Alfie Boe9:04

Uh

Alfie Boe9:05

Okay. This is my theme tune. This is about as classical as my list goes, I think. It's a theme tune uh to The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein. And I have always fancied myself as a cowboy. And this is the shirt on top of it. This is the anthem for every wannabe cowboy.

Presenter9:19

You've got the shirt on top of it.

Presenter10:24

That was the theme to the Magnificent Seven composed by Elmer Bernstein. So as you said, Elfippo, you you were brought up in F uh Fleetwoods, in Lancashire. One of nine children, as I said. So uh busy, busy house there.

Alfie Boe10:33

So

Alfie Boe10:35

Yeah, it was it was good. I mean we we always had um a lively household, good parties, good Christmases.

Presenter10:41

Wh where did you sit in the competition family?

Alfie Boe10:43

I'm the youngest of uh youngest of nine.

Presenter10:46

Oh, you're the youngest of nine

Alfie Boe10:46

The youngest of nine. Five sisters and three brothers, and I'm the youngest. But how old was the eldest? Twenty years older than you? Yeah, my eldest was twenty years older than me when I was born. Um, I think, yeah, I had five sisters or six mothers, whichever way you wanna look at it. But yeah, so they all did uh take care of me. And my brothers were had left home by then as well.

Presenter10:49

I'm the youngest.

Presenter10:52

That's sort of twenty years older than that.

Presenter11:07

And your mother originally planned to be a nun, so she obviously changed her mind.

Alfie Boe11:09

She also changed her mind. Yes she did. She had T B as a as a young child. Right. And so she was um convalescent in a convent and she was going to be a nun. But she came home at one point and um met my father. My father used to deliver groceries on his bike for the co-op and uh he saw my mother walking down the street and just went plowing into this wall, brick wall, just he was looking at it. All these cabbages and potatoes all over the road, you know.

Presenter11:13

Price.

Alfie Boe11:37

Fell off his back and th and they were married for forty seven years, yeah, before he passed away.

Presenter11:42

And what sort of m man was your father? I I mean, I'm talking about as a young man at home with a big family. Oh, yeah. Did you see much of him? Yeah.

Alfie Boe11:47

Did you see much of him? Yeah, yeah, I did. He he was a he was such a hands-on dad. He was a great fella. My first real education in music really was was from my father, you know. He used to sing around the house, but he used to play a lot of really good singers, you know, and I think that's what I like, is I like good singers. I don't necessarily like one genre of music, I just like good voices, good good singers, and good songs. So he used to play Richard Tauber songs from back in the early thirties, you know. I used to play some folks, some country.

Presenter12:01

Okay.

Presenter12:23

Did he have a good voice, your father?

Alfie Boe12:24

He did have a good voice, yeah.

Presenter12:26

And you say it was a house where there was parties and did did he get up and sing? Was it?

Alfie Boe12:29

He'd get up and sing, he'd get up and uh

Alfie Boe12:32

put the breadboard on the floor and do a clog dance on the breadboard. He'd then then end up standing on his head after he'd had a few too many Guinness and that sort of thing. But, you know

Presenter12:41

Who is

Alfie Boe12:41

Had been at one of those fast things? It was good. It was good. Good fun.

Presenter12:42

Yeah.

Presenter12:45

Let's have some more music then, disc number three it is now Elfig.

Alfie Boe12:48

Yeah, this is um very close to my heart. This is actually a song that my father used to sing around the house all the time. Again, um one of his favorite singers, Paul Robeson, and it's um Mighty Like a Rose.

Speaker 213:03

Sweetest little everybody knows.

Speaker 213:09

Don't know what to call him, but he's mighty like a rogue.

Speaker 213:17

Looking at his nanny with eyes of shiny

Speaker 213:24

Make you think that heaven is coming

Presenter13:32

That was Paul Robeson and Mighty Like a Rose. You said during that, Alfie Bo, that your your dad used to sing that to you a lot.

Alfie Boe13:37

Yeah, yeah, he used to he used to sing it to me all the time. Um, I think I can actually even remember being held by him, you know, th back back back when I was a child, you know. It was very emotional.

Presenter13:46

Right.

Presenter13:49

So a big bustling household full of family and music and laughter and I give some advice. Yeah, I was c I was obviously coming on to that. Yeah, I mean, did you all sort of rubble it how big was the house?

Alfie Boe13:52

And laughs.

Alfie Boe14:00

It was a four bedroom council house. But, you know, my brothers and sisters uh some of my brothers had left home when I was born and growing up.

Presenter14:07

Right.

Alfie Boe14:08

But no, we d we always used to have to share rooms and fight for the top bunk, you know, and all that sort of stuff. But, you know, and the hand me downs, the the clothes that you got passed down to you, you know. I never suited my sister's dressing but that was the only problem.

Presenter14:20

And what um what did your dad do? What was his

Alfie Boe14:23

My father was uh a process worker for um ICI, the chemical factory, but he was also very good at woodwork. One Christmas, uh, after he'd retired, he spent uh probably the full year making toys for the grandkids, you know. I just remember the room just being full of these little wooden toys, trucks and dolls houses and it was wonderful.

Presenter14:45

Um how many nieces and nephews then do you have now?

Alfie Boe14:47

Oh my word. I think there's thirty-eight, thirty-nine, something like that now. Many on the way as well.

Presenter14:55

And do do your family do your brothers and sisters come and watch you perform? Are they sort of part of your life now? And?

Alfie Boe15:00

Um, they have their own worlds going on and they have their own kids that they're bringing up, and and so when they can, they they do come and support. Um and I if I'm playing locally they'll always come along, you know. Like Blackpool I'll be playing later on in the year and so they'll come to that and they'll get away with that.

Presenter15:03

Yeah.

Presenter15:17

And what about wh when there's somebody in a family, and it can be, you know, a sporting superstar, it can be a businessman, whatever it is, you know, it they throw up the contrast in other people's lives. Has that has that been an area where you've sort of felt sometimes that your life is a very, very different life from the family you grew up with?

Alfie Boe15:32

Yeah, yeah. I think just living in London does that, you know. It's a very different world than than uh Fleetwood, Lancashire. I don't think really some of my brothers and sisters realize that, you know, they see the the the London life, the fast life, the being on stage, the this, that and the other and the the glitz and glamour a little bit, but it's not always like that. You know, you have to work really hard a little bit.

Presenter15:55

A little bit. Well, they don't see it from the inside. Yeah, they see it from the inside. Let's have some more music then. What are we going to hear next?

Alfie Boe15:57

Yeah, they see it from the outside.

Alfie Boe16:00

What are we going to hear next? This is a a great song. This is A Day in the Life by The Beatles. But I just think it's a fantastic collaboration and a perfect example on of how McCartney Lennon and McCartney worked as a team.

Presenter16:05

Yeah.

Speaker 316:14

Let the news today go boy

Speaker 316:20

About a lucky man who made the grave

Speaker 316:26

And though the news was rather sad

Speaker 316:32

Well I just had to laugh.

Speaker 316:36

I saw the photograph.

Presenter16:43

That was the Beatles and a day in the life. Um uh can I just mention I hope you don't mind you did say to me during uh the music that you we were talking about clogs and your father was doing clogs and dancing on the uh the breadboard. Yeah. You went skating in clogs, wasn't you made that

Alfie Boe16:52

Oh wait.

Alfie Boe16:57

Well yeah no, it's true. It's true. My mum my mum and dad took me to a Blackpool ice rink and um they put me on the ice rink in my clogs when I was about five, you know, and I went skating and I got quickly kicked off. But you know

Presenter17:12

Desert Island is the home of the regional stereotypes. That is great. Yes, we're really playing up to that. And when you were at school then, how had your school years been before it came to leaving school? Did you enjoy school?

Alfie Boe17:14

Thanks, La Scream.

Speaker 217:15

Uh

Alfie Boe17:22

I

Alfie Boe17:23

hated school. I really hated school. I didn't like it at all. Because I never sang, I never had music uh sort of encouragement from school at all.

Presenter17:34

I mean it

Alfie Boe17:35

Why was that? I don't know. I always wanted to take music as well as an option, but um I wasn't allowed to do that because I couldn't play piano or guitar or a violin or a flute or anything like that, so I I couldn't take music, but I could sing. So my life really started at three thirty after I'd finished school.

Presenter17:54

And had you never sung in, for example, uh the church choir or

Alfie Boe17:58

Not really, no. The first time I I joined a choir or or a musical society was when I was fourteen because my sister was going to uh amateur dramatics and she asked she invited me along one weekend and I I turned up and um there was a g a local girl that I'd fancied for a while, you know, and wanted to go out with. So I kept going back every week and then I got hooked on the singing.

Presenter18:23

Right. Did you feel like you'd connected with a bit of yourself that you didn't know was there?

Alfie Boe18:26

Yeah. I'd discovered a a hell of a lot, I really had, you know. I think my life had just started in a m it was like some fire had ignited inside me, this little flame or something had just qu switched on. Right. And it's not s not gone out yet, so

Presenter18:37

Right.

Presenter18:41

And being uh you said uh life began at three thirty. What what did you get up to from three three thirty on?

Alfie Boe18:46

At three thirty I'd go to my friends' houses and we had um rock bands that we I used to play the drums, but I still play the drums. At three thirty it was going either playing football, hanging out on the beach, playing music with friends in bands.

Presenter18:59

Let's have some more music then, Alfiebel. What's next?

Alfie Boe19:01

Um this was the start of my um rock interests really as a kid. I remember listening to The Wall. This song just inspires me to challenge anything that I you know, take everything on board as a challenge and just do it to the best of my ability. This is um Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd.

Speaker 319:22

The distant ship smoke on your horizon

Speaker 319:29

Do I become

Speaker 319:32

Run the way

Speaker 319:36

Your lips move

Speaker 319:38

But I couldn't hear what you said

Speaker 319:44

When I was a child

Speaker 319:47

I have fever.

Presenter19:51

That was pink floyd and comfortably numb. There is still quite a lot of the rocker in you. I mentioned you're wearing this uh denim shirt. Did they um and when when you were at home, one of nine, uh mum and dad at home, did they let you play the drums at home?

Alfie Boe20:00

Mama

Alfie Boe20:02

They did. Well, uh the reason why I s I started playing the drums when I was probably about twelve. I used to arrange pillows and cushions on my bed, you know, from like a high sounding pillow to a low sounding pillow, you know. So and it you know, and uh I used to just play these cushions like crazy. My father

Presenter20:16

Okay.

Alfie Boe20:22

Heard me upstairs and he he he came upstairs and he went what what's all that noise? and he looked round the door and he saw me hitting these cushions.

Alfie Boe20:31

About half an hour later, I had this call from downstairs from my dad saying, Alf, come down, you're making too much noise, we're sick of it now. And he said, Look, go in the front room, there's something in there, I want you to shift it out of there, it's in the way, and put it upstairs, it's something of yours. And I opened the front door, and there was a drum kit. Oh, it was incredible. That's the stuff that dreams amazing. Yeah, it was amazing. Absolutely amazing. He really thought, If you've got something inside you, talent like that, use it, do something with it, and they'd give you the tools to do that, you know.

Presenter20:48

Yeah.

Presenter20:49

That's the stuff that dreams amazing.

Presenter21:01

And so you started uh singing in this sort of weekend uh group and it was clear from that that you had this great voice and yet of course you you know you went out to get a job'cause you weren't staying on to do the exams and you you ended up at the T V R factory in Blackpool making those very distinctive little sports cars. Yeah, I did yeah. And in the legend of Alfie Bo's life they say that it was a man who heard you singing on the floor of the garage as you were polishing his car who said, You you want to do something with that voice, boy. Is that in is that in any way true or has that been completely made up?

Alfie Boe21:04

Yeah.

Alfie Boe21:10

Current stay on

Speaker 221:12

Uh

Alfie Boe21:12

He went along with

Alfie Boe21:15

Yeah, I did, yeah.

Alfie Boe21:21

Thierry

Speaker 221:21

Uh

Alfie Boe21:26

In the

Alfie Boe21:27

I got a lot of encouragement from my work colleagues, you know. I was in Amateur Operatic Society doing Westside Story at the time. So I used to sing the music around the factory. The guys used to hear me. Customers used to hear me. And then, yeah, this fellow who was in the business in some form in London auditioning for guys like you for the chorus. Somebody else told me about the audition as well. And I picked up the newspaper and saw the advertisement for it. I thought, well, there's three things telling me.

Presenter21:35

Site.

Presenter21:47

To show business in some way.

Alfie Boe22:05

to go for this audition.

Presenter22:06

So you come to London. Had you been to London before?

Alfie Boe22:08

Never been before, no, no.

Presenter22:10

And this is for the addition

Alfie Boe22:11

Yeah.

Presenter22:11

Mm.

Alfie Boe22:11

For the doiler car. And I walked in and I'd turned up in

Presenter22:12

Yeah, okay.

Alfie Boe22:15

Jeans and a again, nothing's changed really, jeans and a lumberjack shirt, you know. So, and um I was surrounded by all these other singers wearing three-piece suits and the hair was all tidy and nice. And I had long hair at the time, I still have long hair. And I thought, what am I doing here? You know, I don't fit in here. And I sang the only song that I could sing, and it was the only song I knew at the time, which was You and My Heart's Delight by Franz Lehau. So I was at home and got the phone call from the company manager, and he said, We'd like to offer you a place in our chorus. And oh, my heart just jumped, and my father was

Presenter22:32

Uh

Alfie Boe22:52

My father was all over the place. He was in tears. He was running around the room and and oh my it w it was great, lovely moment and and I packed in my job in the garage and went on the road with the doily cart.

Presenter23:04

Do you remember the the conversation with your uh foreman or your gaffer or whatever? What did you say to him?

Alfie Boe23:08

I remember going in with such delight because my foreman was a real idiot. Such delight. And he says, What are you gonna do? And I said, I'm gonna be a singer. He said, You're stupid. You're stupid. You could have a career here. Ninety quid a week, you know. Everybody at the factory though was so supportive. My own colleagues, they were they were wonderful guys.

Presenter23:29

I hope he's listening.

Presenter23:31

Let's have some music then. Um we're on disc six.

Alfie Boe23:34

Disc Six, this is um again, I'm a huge fan of this uh artist. It's Elvis Presley. He had a real intimate side to his voice and he could sing a lullaby just as sweetly as as he could sing a ballad or a rock rock song. And this is um called Big Boots and it's from the G.I. Blues album.

Speaker 323:53

Call your daddy Big Boo.

Speaker 323:56

Big Boots is his name.

Speaker 324:00

It takes a big man to wear big boots.

Speaker 324:04

That your debt is claimed to fame.

Speaker 324:09

They know your daddy big boots.

Speaker 324:13

Wherever soldiers are

Speaker 324:17

Cause he can handle an armored

Presenter24:21

That was Elvis Presley and Big Boots from the soundtrack to G.I. Blues. So, Alfibo, tell me about going to the Royal College of Music then. You won a scholarship there to

Alfie Boe24:29

Yeah, I did. What age were you then? I was twenty one, I think twenty, when I when I joined the Royal College of Music.

Presenter24:35

Did you feel like a real fish out of water?

Alfie Boe24:37

I did, yeah. I went to the Royal College of Music not being able to read music at all. I think it's quite scary to walk through those doors and you see you see that building, it looks like Dracula's Castle, you know. I didn't really know how I would get on without knowing music, without understanding music,'cause I'd learnt everything in the past by ear. Yes. You know, and I still do that now. I rely on that. Even though I can read music, I still revert back to my old method of learning, which is just memory.

Presenter25:05

And how does that work then in rehearsals and so on? As you say, you do have the knowledge and you understand the craft, but if at the core of your personality is that person who thinks it's not really where I'm coming from, does that affect the way you rehearse, the way you perform, the way you interact with other performers?

Alfie Boe25:10

Yeah.

Alfie Boe25:15

Yeah.

Alfie Boe25:17

Yeah.

Alfie Boe25:19

I think if you get bogged down with music technically, it can take away the emotion. I think that a score is there as an outline for you to embellish and paint it yourself. And I think the the composers would give you that license.

Presenter25:35

The thrill was big enough for your father with Doily Cart, but when his son is at the Royal College of Music, does he come to watch his son perform?

Alfie Boe25:38

Yeah.

Alfie Boe25:41

Does he

Alfie Boe25:43

He did. He came to see me in a number of concerts that I did there. The last time he saw me at the Royal College of Music was at my graduation. And I was sat up on stage. I looked out into the audience and I saw my mother. And then I looked next to her and I saw my father and he was fast asleep with what we used to call his Fred Flintstone face, because when he used to sleep, he looked like Fred Flintstone. It was really, really funny. But as it happened, he was very poorly. He had a brain tumour, and we didn't know that. It was quite a shock to us all. Did he?

Presenter26:20

Did he he didn't know either. I mean, he wasn't keeping it from me. He didn't

Alfie Boe26:21

I mean he wasn't keeping it from me, he didn't know. No, he wasn't, no, no, he didn't know at all. We were told by the doctors that we'd only have six months with him, less than that, you know. And uh we actually had ten months with him.

Presenter26:29

Okay.

Presenter26:33

Did you come home from London to spend time with him in that final period?

Alfie Boe26:36

Yeah, I used to come home every weekend so in fact I got to spend the last night with him and also had the luxury and the blessing of being able to hold him while he was dying which was incredible. It's an amazing thing to experience because I I did feel him go, did you know? Yeah. He just left. It wasn't my father anymore that I was holding. It was it was uh an incredible, incredible thing and and

Presenter26:54

Did you know?

Alfie Boe27:03

Can't believe I'm talking about this on national radio, to be honest, but it's

Presenter27:05

Yeah

Alfie Boe27:07

It's it's it's something that's very special to me that made me

Alfie Boe27:11

That changed my life, you know, and made me grow up. I grew up a lot.

Presenter27:14

What made

Alfie Boe27:16

I think it was a real turning point for me. I I really became a man, I think. Realized what life was about. It was a very um spiritual time, you know, it was a real emotional, very spiritual time. Being present at at the death of my father and the birth of my daughter is just an incredible thing to have experienced, you know.

Presenter27:37

Do you feel y y y y you've spoken very vividly about the um the type of father that your dad was? And do you f do you feel the the sort of legacy?

Alfie Boe27:43

That was a bit

Alfie Boe27:47

Um, I d I I do. Um, I mean, I there's funny things. You know, my father said to me at one point, he said, When when I'm gone, Alf, you know, um, there'll there'll be a point in your life and there'll be one day that you'll you'll uh

Alfie Boe28:02

You'll see me, you know, you'll see me and I thought

Alfie Boe28:06

I I don't know what you mean by that, but and I never knew what he meant by that until it happened.

Alfie Boe28:13

And it's not spooky or anything like that, but I just I remember it was a simple, simple little thing. I went into the back kitchen and to make a cup of tea.

Alfie Boe28:24

And I picked up the kettle, and I looked at my hand.

Alfie Boe28:29

And I'm not kidding, it was my father's hand.

Presenter28:31

Yeah. Yeah.

Alfie Boe28:33

And the way I stirred the tea, it was the way my father did it.

Alfie Boe28:37

And everything I do now, I've noticed my father in myself, and it takes it took him to die for me to realise that I was his son, you know. I probably won't be as good a person as he was, but you know, I try and have the same humour and the I give my daughter the same sort of teaching that I had and moral standards and all that sort of stuff and

Presenter28:45

You know.

Alfie Boe29:00

It's uh it's an incredible thing to experience that, you know.

Presenter29:04

Let's have some music then. We're on uh disc number seven, Alfie. Yeah.

Alfie Boe29:07

Yeah, this is um actually mine and my wife's song. We danced at this at our wedding. Everybody was expecting something really um calming and ballady, you know. I suppose this happens to be Led Zeppelin's range song.

Speaker 329:45

What's the blue?

Presenter29:51

That was Led Zeppelin and the Rain song and fabulously, Alfie Bull. You say that was uh your song for you and your wife at your wedding. Yeah. Now everybody wants to work with you, I understand. But Robert Plants and you are aware.

Speaker 329:56

Uh

Alfie Boe29:56

Yeah.

Alfie Boe30:01

I've been yeah, fortunate enough, you know, that was Robert singing and and uh fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do a duet with him. Oh my goodness, he's the rock god, he really is, you know, Robert Plant. So I just can't believe my luck.

Presenter30:05

Yeah.

Presenter30:16

So, Alfibo, you went out with Baz Luhrmann to do this production of uh La Boem. You were one of uh the cast who won it. You were an ordered Tony for your performance. When you were out in New York, apart from the success with La Boem, that was where you met your wife. Yeah, that's right. Was she working on the same production?

Alfie Boe30:21

When

Alfie Boe30:25

Yeah.

Speaker 330:25

Yeah.

Alfie Boe30:25

Yeah.

Speaker 230:25

Performance.

Alfie Boe30:31

Yeah, that's right.

Alfie Boe30:34

No, Sarah was actually, um, studying in in San Francisco. She's an actress. Sarah then came to New York with me for the Broadway run. We got married a year later. We've been married for seven years now and we've got a a little girl, little Gracie.

Presenter30:38

Well

Presenter30:48

And you said you were there at the birth o of Gracie. Being one of nine then, I can only imagine you're planning to have eight more of your own.

Alfie Boe30:54

Well, I I'd I'd I'd like more children. I'd I like, um, big families of of course coming from a big family myself, but I suppose it just depends on how lucky we are.

Presenter31:00

Yeah.

Presenter31:03

And what about, given how close you were to your dad, what about the fact that he ha he didn't meet your wife and he's he has never met Gracie again?

Alfie Boe31:09

Yeah. I I do uh regret that actually. I do feel a bit sad about that because I know that uh the first thing you would have said to Sarah when he met her was uh what the hell are you doing with him? That's what he would have said, you know.

Alfie Boe31:25

And I know that he would have loved my little girl so much and he loved children. So, uh, that's one thing my brothers and sisters have over me is that they've had the chance of of taking their kids to see my dad, but it's not that it's a competition, it's just it's one of those things.

Presenter31:38

Some latest

Presenter31:39

It's just it's one of those things. Um surely you can't help but wonder what he might have said to you about this extraordinary career, your albums going into the top ten, all that stuff that that happens now for you on a regular basis. What would he have made of that?

Alfie Boe31:47

Yeah.

Alfie Boe31:53

I'd like to say I think he would have been proud, you know, I think he would have been proud. He was a bit of a closet performer himself, I think, you know, so he would have lapped it up so much. He would have loved to have, um, been at the parties and

Alfie Boe32:05

had the the nice lifestyle of it, you know, he would have liked that

Presenter32:08

Does your mother do that? Does she come along to the gigs and parties and fresh nights?

Alfie Boe32:12

She doesn't she doesn't really know, no. She's seventy eight now and she'll tell me off for saying that on national radio as well, but she doesn't really travel the way that she used to anymore and she can't really come to London on her own very well, but uh she's always tuning in to the radio.

Presenter32:28

And is she surprised by this huge success? Or does she say, you know, I always thought when I saw you there at the amateur.

Alfie Boe32:34

She amateurs. She always knew that it something had happened, yeah, that it'd take off.

Presenter32:36

This show is

Alfie Boe32:40

And she's I think she's been very proud about the way that I've worked at it.

Presenter32:44

Let's have your final piece of music then, Alfie Bo. What is that?

Alfie Boe32:45

Yeah.

Alfie Boe32:46

This takes me right back to my childhood. It was played so much at home that thinking that when you listen to the song, the image of the front living room, the roast dinner, the family around the table, my dad used to sing this as a nighttime song for me and it's come full circle, so I'm actually singing it for my little girl now, for Gracie. And this is Slim Whitman, Beautiful Dreamer.

Speaker 333:12

Beautiful dreamer

Speaker 333:19

Waken

Speaker 333:21

To me

Speaker 333:23

Starlight and dew drop

Speaker 333:28

Are waiting

Speaker 333:30

For the

Speaker 333:33

Sounds of the roof

Presenter33:40

Slim Whitman and Beautiful Dreamer. So, Alphibo, um, the books then. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare. Okay, and you also get to take

Alfie Boe33:45

And the complete

Alfie Boe33:46

Okay, and you also get to take

Presenter33:48

Yeah.

Alfie Boe33:48

A book of your own.

Presenter33:48

Boom.

Alfie Boe33:48

Oh, um I think I'd have to take tropical recipe book cooking-wise. Yes, we'll find you one of those. Thank you. We'll track it down. A hundred different recipes for coconut again. Thank you.

Presenter33:54

Yes, we'll find you one of those. Thank you. We'll track it down. 100 different recipes for coconut. Yeah. Again, I think it's yours. And a luxury.

Alfie Boe34:03

I've thought long and hard about this and my wife told me helped me along with this and I was thinking practically a Stanley knife, solar powered beard trimmer, what can I do? And then I thought, I can't survive without my drunket. Ah And then I can play as loud as I want and as long as I want without being told to shut up.

Presenter34:04

And

Presenter34:20

You surely can. The drum kit is yours. And if you had to choose just one of these eight discs, which one disc would you choose to save?

Alfie Boe34:20

You surely can, thank you.

Alfie Boe34:22

And if you

Alfie Boe34:26

Uh

Presenter34:26

Yeah.

Alfie Boe34:27

Oh my goodness. Um that's that's tricky. I think if I was sat on a desert island

Alfie Boe34:33

A supping coconut milk, with my drum kit next to me watching the sunset, I'd probably take Paul Robeson with me.

Presenter34:40

It's yours. Alfie Bo, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:30

You've been listening to a download from the BBC.

Presenter35:33

You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk/radio4.