Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Singer who went from car mechanic to star in La Boheme, his voice heard from the Royal Opera House to Broadway.
On the island
Eight records
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.
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.
Mighty Lak' a RoseFavourite
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:58Do you feel there's a degree of schizophrenia in your working life [crossing over between opera and musical theatre]?
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.
Presenter asks
2:51What did you make of the critic who said your downfall would be your fans?
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. ... 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. ... 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 My audience.
Presenter asks
3:43Why is there no high opera in your musical choices?
The keepsakes
The luxury
I can't survive without my drunket. And then I can play as loud as I want and as long as I want without being told to shut up.
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. ... 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 Bored stiff. I really have to say, I really am.
Presenter asks
6:37What was it like to walk out in front of nineteen thousand people [at the O2]?
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. ... 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. 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.
Presenter asks
17:12Did you enjoy school?
I 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. ... 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.
Presenter asks
26:33Did you come home from London to spend time with [your father] in that final period?
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.
“I never go to the opera. ... sitting in the audience and watching it, I'm 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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”