Alan Fletcher (Dr Karl Kennedy, Neighbours)

Top three artists and their albums?
Kaiser Chiefs ‘Employment’, Elvis Costello’s first album ‘My Aim is True’ and, I think probably, the third favourite album would be… ‘John Lennon Greatest Hits’.

Your favourite musical style?
At the moment, Indie rock would be the best way to describe it, maybe influenced by punk: Greenday, Kaisers.

Do you think you’ll be performing anything on the show?
I hope so. Very popular in the UK, particularly at the moment, is a lot of Kooks, The Feeling, I love the Killers, Franz Ferdinand. It’s actually kind of like slightly quirky Indie rock with punk and quite poppy with McFly at the moment. Very big. Some of the McFly songs I listen to, I could hear Cliff Richard singing them to be honest, and that’s not putting them down at all.

You’re actually in a band, aren’t you? What sort of music do you perform?
We play half of our own stuff and half covers, so the covers go into Foo Fighters, Kaisers, Franz Ferdinand, we do a bit of Queen, we do a bit of Oasis, we do a bit of Robert Palmer for a laugh.

So how would you describe your own music?
Our stuff’s really quite eclectic, I’ve written quite a few ballads, some moody stuff…well not so much moody. I mean, any ballads we do, we tend to rock them out anyway, so rock ballads would be the best description. But most of the songs we perform in gigs are kind of slightly quirky fun songs about student life, about partying too hard, that sort of thing.

Would you say you’re an actor or a singer?
I’d say that they go hand in hand, I’m a performer, I’m an entertainer. That’s my business: entertaining people. Singing and acting are both just about interpreting a story and selling a story, explaining a message to people, it’s just one of them uses music and one of them uses the spoken word. Most actors are trained to be singers; it’s a tool of the trade.

Do you know any of the actors in Soapstar?
No, I don’t know anyone really well, obviously quite a few people I’ve seen around the place or whatever, I mean, I’m not really exposed to English shows because they’re not widely distributed in Australia, plus I hardly watch any telly. I watch my own show to see what’s going on so I can ring my mates up and say you did a good job, but I see very little telly.

How long have you been in Neighbours?
12 years.

What is your earliest singing memory?
I was in a production of a musical called ‘Little Gipsy Gay’ when I was 12 years old and I played the lead and I was the gipsy king. And half way through the rehearsals, the director said there’s something wrong and he worked out it was me, so he asked me not to sing. It was just funny because it just didn’t work.

Who would you compare yourself to in singing style?
That’s the difficult thing, because I’m a live performer and I’m doing a wide range of material I don’t really compare myself to anyone or see myself in any sort of slot. I suppose, really, that at my core a lot of the work I do is in the swing area. I’m going back to Australia to do a series of concerts with the Australian Pops Orchestra where I’ll be doing songs like ‘Well Did
You Ever’ from High Society, ‘Swinging on a Star’ and songs like that, but I’ll also be doing ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, so you mix it up. I think it is a bit of a trap actually to identify yourself with somebody because then you’re saying that’s kind of all I do, I just like the idea of saying well, I’m open to be whatever.

What can the audience expect from you?
I’m hoping that they’ll find me fun. I hope they’ll enjoy my process of going through this challenge, because it’s what it is - it’s a big challenge. I want them to be entertained by me. And I want them to sympathise with me too, if they can. I hope that they’ll sit at home and sort of go wow, imagine if I had to do that. That’s the highlight of the show for me, I think. When I watched the first series, I thought, from reviewer, you really feel for the people on the show; you feel for the pressure they’re under.

What if the judging panel are nasty to you?
I’ve been an actor for 30 years, I’ve got plenty of bad reviews.

How will your friends and family react to the news that you are doing the show?
I hope they’ll be supportive. I mean, most of my friends in Australia will probably never see it. My family are very supportive. My son, he loves the fact that dad sings. When he goes to bed at night-time, he listens to my album to put himself off to sleep. He’s nine. And my daughter also, she’s very supportive… and they’re wonderful. Spending a lot of time away from them is really hard. It’s hard for them to get around the fact that dad’s going to be away for long periods of time just at the end of this year, but they’re great.

Will you be home for Christmas?
Home for Christmas. Unfortunately I’ll be working a little bit in that period and then straight back, yeah.