Alfie Boe talks ahead of Birmingham and Shropshire shows

What’s it all about, Alfie?

If ever there was a man destined to live a humdrum life, it was Alfie Boe. The youngest of nine children, he was born in Blackpool, brought up in nearby Fleetwood and by the age of 17 was working as a car mechanic for TVR in Bispham.

As a kid, he grew up in a large and happy Catholic family which maintained the tradition of sitting down together as a family, especially for Sunday lunch. That’s when his father, Alf, would play operatic arias to the family.

Alfie fell in love with singing and sang arias while he polished TVR cars, hoping to entertain his colleagues. And then, one day, a client suggested he go to London to audition for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

So began one of the most remarkable stories in modern music. The audition was a success and Alfie was able to give up polishing cars.

Twenty-six years later, Alfie is still singing his song. He’s sold more than a million albums in the UK, won a Tony Award and played lead roles in the West End and on Broadway.

He has no time for the drama and the romance of it all, however. Alfie’s too busy living his life, trying to improve and searching for the next hit to rest on his laurels. He lives in the present, rather than the past, enjoying the moment and giving his all.

“I don’t live in a fairy story. When I was a kid, it wasn’t like ‘my life will be this and that and I’ll be spotted’. That’s not what happened. Singing is my reality. It’s my reality. I’m living it. I don’t have those fairy stories. I don’t think ‘I’ll be singing at Buckingham Palace next week’.

“When good things happen, you’re grateful for it. But I didn’t for one minute think at the car factory that this would happen the way it has. But I’m doing it and I have to work and continue to. I can’t stop and dwell on that story. It’s my journey. I’m still on it. I haven’t stopped. I haven’t stopped. You can’t just think ‘I’ve put this amount of work in so it’ll all be easy now’. That’s not how it works. You have to keep working.”

Few entertainers are as hard working and as grounded as Alfie. He’s a man with no airs and graces. His Blackpool accent hasn’t been replaced by plumby Middle England tones, or a trans-Atlantic Broadway drawl. His northern roots have never left him, though he now lives in the USA with his wife, Sarah, and two children, Grace and Alfie. And it’s the work, rather than the perceived glamour, that keeps him on track.

“If I’m honest again, I’m rather glad that I’m Alfie Boe from Fleetwood in Lancashire, and that I’ve never forgotten where my roots are. And that I speak my mind – maybe, perhaps, a bit too often and too loudly . . .

“People don’t realise that it’s not all full houses with enthusiastic audiences, that it’s such a hard slog, with so many disappointments along the way, and so many obstacles to overcome. I’d love to do more work at the Royal College of Music (where he trained), where I could mentor the up-and-coming performers of today, and to give them a few words about what to expect. I’d tell them ‘life out there is tough’. There’s no use in weaving a lovey-dovey fairy story for them.”

There are moments of magic, however. And his latest collaboration with fellow singer, Michael Ball, has provided many of them. The duo are old mates, having met in 2007 at the London Coliseum while both starring in Kismet. They performed together that year at the BBC Proms and remained in touch.

On that occasion, Michael was making history as the first musical theatre star to be given a solo concert at the Royal Albert Hall’s BBC Proms. He asked Alfie to join him to perform at the classical music festival. Their instant personal connection and mutual admiration made for the perfect pairing.

So when the idea came about for them to record an album together, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. Michael says the two men went into the project planning to play to their strengths. In fact, it became a riot. They constantly ribbed one another and at one point Michael tried to persuade Alfie to do a WHAM! tribute with a medley featuring J-j-j-jitterbug, working through to Club Tropicana, back via WHAM!, Bam, I am, A Man.

Alfie says: “We worked together at the London Coliseum 10 years ago. We kept in touch and decided to have a go at teaming up. It was good fun and I think that’s the beauty of our job. It’s fun to do. You work hard when you have to but at other times, it’s a lot of fun.”

The two critically-acclaimed artists have received a plethora of prestigious awards, record-breaking sales and chart successes. Over his extraordinary 30-year career, Michael’s outstanding performances have made smash-hit box office history. He is a double Olivier Award winner, multi-platinum recording artist, top selling live concert performer and a hugely popular radio and TV presenter.

Alfie’s exceptional voice has made him Britain’s most popular and biggest-selling tenor. He has conquered the world’s greatest opera stages and arenas, led the cast of Les Misérables, stole the show at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace – as well achieving UK album sales of more than a million, and four top 10 albums.

Michael and Alfie whittled down a long list of songs to just 14 and released them under the banner Together. That included classics from musicals and a number of tunes that they’ve performed as soloists. One of the stand-outs was opening track, Les Miserables Suite, featuring a medley of Bring Him Home, Empty Chairs at Empty Tables and I Dreamed A Dream. Alfie was delighted to perform it, having made his name as Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, in London’s Queen’s Theatre and in the Broadway revival.

Together was a huge success. It entered the chart at number two before moving to the top spot soon after as it notched up a platinum disc.

“It’s double platinum now,” Alfie corrects me. Michael and Alfie became the oldest duo to top the UK album chart, at 54 and 43 respectively.

And the record was so popular that they’re taking it on the road for a series of concerts, including one at Walcot Hall, in Shropshire, on Tuesday and another at Birmingham’s Genting Arena on December 5. The Shropshire gig is part of a season of outdoor shows while the Birmingham follow-up features in an eagerly-anticipated end-of-year arena tour.

Alfie says: “We’ll be doing a lot of songs from the album. Together was a mixture of musical theatre with a couple of additions. It was a lot of fun and the concerts will be fun to do. We have a good rapport on stage and it will be great to get out and do open air concerts.

“We didn’t plan on the record going double platinum. We didn’t have expectations when we recorded together. We went into it to have fun and see where it went. When it started to take off we realised it was working and wondered how far it would go. But initially it was about enjoying each other’s voices. There were compromises on both sides, if he was determined to do a song then I’d have a listen and likewise. It was a collaboration in the truest sense.

“But really, we started off to just have a bit of fun and create a good project. We didn’t have expectations and I never do because if you don’t reach those expectations things can be disappointing. So we just went in to have a lot of fun and enjoy singing good songs.”

And yet despite his humble beginnings, perhaps it’s no surprise that Alfie has become Britain’s favourite tenor. As a child, he listened to his father’s Richard Tauber records and at the age of 11 he discovered Puccini’s La Boheme for the first time. Soon after, he made his first public performance, at Fleetwood’s Marine Hall, singing a few lines after overcoming nerves.

“I guess it was dad who introduced me to opera and to music in general when I was quite small. Dad’s favourite singer was the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber, one of the greatest stars of the pre-war and wartime era. In fact, one of the first true auditions I ever did was with one of Tauber’s greatest songs, You Are My Heart’s Delight and the reason for that was it was just about the only piece of classical music that I knew all the way through.”

Though his father has long passed, dying from cancer at the age of 63, Alfie thinks of him every day. “One other thing – last thing before I walk on stage, I say to myself: ‘Lend us a hand, Dad’.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Alfie avoids the trappings of success and adopts an easy-going Northern charm to his work. So, for instance, if he hears a mobile phone going off during a concert, he avoids an actor-ly hissy fit and defuses things in his own inimitable style.

“I was halfway through a concert in Cardiff when, just as I was introducing the next song, I heard a loud ringing noise, and spotted a woman trying to switch off her phone. So I walked down into the audience, made my way along her row, and introduced myself. I asked if I could have a look at her phone and pressed the redial button. It started buzzing at the other end. Then someone picked up, and it was the woman’s mother . . .

“I put the phone onto loudspeaker so that the entire place could hear her. I told her that I was Alfie Boe, that I was in the middle of a show, and that her daughter was standing right next to me. She didn’t believe me when I told her my name, so I asked everyone to shout it out loudly for her. That convinced her, and we had a very nice conversation. In fact, it turned into one of the highlights of the night . . . the point is that the lady with the phone was so incredibly embarrassed that I don’t think she’ll ever take a phone to a concert again.”

And yet for all of his low-key approach and his determination to downplay his success, Alfie acknowledges that his story is one of the best.

“It’s been a remarkable story, it’s been quite the journey. I’m very appreciative of the support I’ve had professionally and from my fans, the people who’ve travelled that journey with me.”

His ambitions for the future are modest. There are no grand plans, no tick boxes, no wish lists. “I just want to keep continuing to provide good music and good entertainment. Is it all down to hard work, of course it bl**dy is. You don’t get anywhere without graft. If you want to do something well you have to put the work in. It doesn’t get handed to you.

“It’s a vocation in a sense and music is what I love. I have a duty to the public to provide music they want to hear and I have to keep working hard.”

It’s the rewards of that hard work that have made Alfie a household name.

“If you look at Broadway and the West End, without those opportunities and platforms my fan base wouldn’t be where it is today. Playing Broadway for 12 months is a big old crowd, then six months in the West End is a big worldwide audience. Without those opportunities my profile would plateau. But I’ve taken those opportunities and things have grown over the years.”