Matthew Wolfenden (David Metcalfe, Emmerdale)

What are your top three artists and their albums?
At the moment, probably Ben Folds, always got Ben Folds on my top album list. Either Ben Folds or Ben Folds Five, whichever one, love them all. And at the moment probably, The Feeling and Razorlight.

What is your favourite musical style?
My voice sort of lends itself quite well to rocky stuff.

What would sort of be your ideal track that you’d like to sing for the show?
I don’t know. I’ve had loads of ideas of songs and when you think about so many, you come up with all these songs that you’d love to get on stage and sing. So my answer to that is I don’t really know. Possibly like a Rod Stewart song. Something classic, Rod Stewart, rocky, something like that.

Did you see him on the X Factor the other week?
Yeah, I did. Stunning.

Would you like to sing on the X Factor
No, no I wouldn’t at all.

What is your earliest singing memory?
I was really shy when I was younger. I used to do gymnastics for a long time, from being five to about 16. And I would never sing, it wasn’t something that I would ever do. I always loved singing along to songs and stuff. And until I decided to go for a career in theatre, I didn’t really… I started getting singing lessons when I was at university. I trained as a dancer at university and got private singing lessons throughout my course because I always had it in the back of my mind that I’d like to do musical theatre. And then my first musical job was in a musical version of Romeo and Juliet and I covered Tybalt and he had a couple of solos in that. So that’s probably my earliest professional singing memory, going on stage for my understudy as Tybalt and standing on this big stage at the Piccadilly Theatre and singing this solo. It was terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

How many people does it seat?
It seats about 1,500. And I’ll never forget the day that I went on, Barbara Windsor was sitting on the front row and his song was sang on the top of this tower looking down on to the audience and I remember getting to the top of this tower and looking down and the first person I saw was Barbara Windsor on the front row. And then my music started and I had to sing this song, which is completely ridiculous. But that’s my earliest sort of professional singing memory.

What can the audience expect from Mathew’s performances? What are you strengths on stage?
I’m not sort of too happy about going on and singing stuff like Justin Timberlake and things like that. Not because I don’t like that music, but it’s just not something I would personally listen to therefore it’s not something I would want to go on and sing, because I think with doing shows like this, people are doing it because it’s a once in a lifetime thing to go on a stage and sing with an amazing band behind you to people and singing songs that you like. So, I’d like to sing some … I like Indie stuff, rocky stuff, I like old stuff like stuff from the 80s, so we’ll see. But, probably try and stay from all the Justin Timberlake, very poppy, R & B poppy stuff.

What do you think your character would say about you doing the show?
What a funny question! I think that my character’s very much like me, although I don’t think he would do this. He’s cooler than me – the first time you see David on screen, he goes over to Delilah Dingle and chats her up and asks her if he could buy her a drink, and I would never ever do that and never have done it. So, in that sense, he’s more confident, but he’s a bit sort of cooler, so I don’t know if he would do it. He’d probably just sit in the background and be cool.

Did you watch last year’s show?
Yes. I caught bits of it and I was around for the whole hoo ha about it, but I was working in theatre at the time. I was doing pantomime at the Old Vic with Sir Ian McKellen. So I was doing that, so I was stuck in the theatre for a lot of it and you miss all that period of time.

That’s quite a lot to do in a year?
It’s bizarre and it’s completely bonkers. When I got offered Emmerdale, I was offered Emmerdale four months in advance of going on to record the show and I was approached about Soapstar Superstar before I’d even started filming, within that four months of me getting the part and starting, I was asked about Soapstar. So it was just bizarre, because on one side I was going ‘oh my God, I’m going to be on this huge massive soap’ and then all of a sudden in the back of my mind, I’ve got ‘I might be doing Soapstar Superstar as well’, which goes out to a completely different audience as well. Obviously, the audiences that watch soaps are going to watch this as well, but there’s also a whole new audience that are brought into it as well. So yeah, it’s completely… it’s bonkers for me.

How did your friends and family react to the news that you are doing the show?
Oh, they’ll love it. Absolutely love it. I’ve not really told anybody about Soapstar Superstar, but the close family that I have told are very excited. They’re all getting the badges and t-shirts made, which is very embarrassing. But my sister-in-law’s a school teacher, so I’m sure she’ll be at school getting the kids to make badges and signs and stuff, which she’ll love.