Alfie Boe Brothers and Sisters
HE is the granny's favourite who orders gravy as his back-stage rider and once spotted an audience member knitting.
Yet as the poster boy of the classical music scene, Alfie Boe has a twinkle in his eye that betrays a more rock 'n' roll edge than what we see on stage.
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A high school drop-out, he has battled booze and slept rough on his way to fame.
He has an explosive temper, which has seen him break his hand punching a wall.
And he was once accused of scrawling the C-word across a poster of Katherine Jenkins as part of an ongoing feud with the Welsh singer Alfie, 46, said: "I quite like being known as the bad boy of opera. I think I ruffle some feathers, but only for the right reasons."
But he will be serving up family-friendly TV, with a musical special alongside best mate Michael Ball, 57.
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It will feature songs from the duo's recently released third album, Back Together, and guests including Shirley Bassey and Gregory Porter.
The show is squarely aimed at the fans who pay to see him perform — and they tend to be of the older and more gentle variety.
Even Alfie admitted of the crowd at his concerts: "I once saw someone knitting, which is probably not a good sign."
Singing was not always on the cards for young Alfred Giovanni Roncalli Boe.
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As the youngest of nine children growing up in Fleetwood, Lancs, he would listen to his mum sing Paul McCartney's Mull Of Kintyre as she fried cod brought round by Uncle Chas the fish merchant.
His father, who died when Alfie was 23, played opera records, while his brothers introduced him to music from Elvis to opera La Boheme.
As he did not play the piano or violin, his school refused to let him take music as a subject.
Alfie said: "The amount of times I wanted to burn that school down."
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He left sixth-form college without A levels and became an apprentice at the TVR sports car factory in Blackpool, earning £100 a week.
Fate came knocking when a customer — who Alfie has never been able to track down — heard him singing arias as he worked.
This customer suggested he enter the open auditions for the D'Oyly Carte opera company.
Alfie said: "At the audition I was wearing a lumberjack shirt, T-shirt, jeans and boots.
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"I looked around at all these suits and ballgowns, opera Kens and Barbies, and thought, 'I don't fit in here. This is wrong'."
Two weeks later he was invited to be part of the chorus for the following tour.
At heart, he yearned to be a rock star but believed that classical training was the best grounding a singer could get.
He said: "I was just a normal kid listening to The Stone Roses and The Charlatans.
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"I still want to get out there in front of a band."
While living a supposedly dream life performing all over Europe with the company, he was also fighting a secret battle with booze.
He said: "I could go months without a drink, but then I'd hit it hard. I'd drink too much and end up smashing up a room."
Alfie, who stopped drinking in 2014, added: "It became a crutch with which to deal with any stress — a difficult colleague, a bad rehearsal, a taxi not turning up."
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After leaving the opera company he studied at the Royal College of Music in London, where the good-looking student had plenty of female company.
In his 2013 autobiography Alfie: My Story, he wrote: "I was part of a group of boys who decided to sleep with as many freshers as we could in the first week.
I think I clocked up six or seven. Shocking behaviour." But it was also a dark time.
He added in the book: "There were times when I was really deeply depressed — having no money, not knowing what was going on career-wise or even if I was wasting my time."
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One night, after going to Ronnie Scott's jazz club in Soho, he was sick over himself in a taxi and woke up face down on the floor in his college hall.
He said: "I was freaked out about the state I'd got myself into."
In his second year he lived in a fog of marijuana smoke created by three flatmates.
Alfie said: "I had the odd spliff but because I was a singer I couldn't afford to do anything too heavy."
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Much later he did accidentally eat hash cakes while gigging in Amsterdam.
He has no idea how he performed as he was, "still buzzing, still stoned, still paranoid", afterwards.
Believing his student flat was not an ideal environment for him to flourish, Alfie moved out and eventually decided that sleeping on a bench in Hyde Park — with his backpack strapped to his ankle so no one would steal it — seemed a better option.
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Alfie, who now lives in Gloucestershire with actress wife Sarah, 38, and children Grace, 11, and Alfie, seven, wrote: "There was an element of fun to it, being able to party and just collapse on a bench at the end of the night."
There has been plenty more wild behaviour too, like his habit of punching objects.
He broke his hand whacking a wall when his mother told him she didn't like him singing non-classical songs.
And he broke a ring on his finger when punching a door.
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He was also said to have clashed with singer Katherine Jenkins when the pair appeared in Carousel on the West End.
Then last December, he was believed to have scrawled the C-word on a poster of her at an HMV signing session she was attending in Manchester.
Staff apparently told Katherine it was Alfie, but a source close to him told The Sun at the time: "Anyone could have done this."
Alfie once shamed an audience member whose phone rang during a performance in Cardiff by grabbing the woman's mobile and hitting redial. He then put the device to his microphone and told the woman's mother he was in the middle of a show.
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His connection to Michael Ball had an odd beginning. As a struggling student, Alfie dropped a note through the stage star's letterbox asking for advice.
He did not get a reply.
Years later, in 2007, Alfie ended up working with Michael when the pair appeared in an English National Opera production of musical Kismet.
He really hit the big time though in 2010, starring as Jean Valjean in the 25th anniversary production of Les Miserables at London's O2, with Matt Lucas playing the crooked Thenardier.
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In 2016 he and Michael released their first album of duets, Together. It went double platinum and topped the charts.
Another huge hit followed a year later with Together Again.
In interviews, the pair love to take the mickey out of each other, with Alfie teasing Michael for his big ego and showbiz tendencies.
In turn, Michael chips in with: "I am so showbiz. And he's so basic. Part of his rider, this isn't a joke, is Bisto."
The ITV special, Ball & Boe, is their third together, but their first festive one.
Alfie, who was awarded an OBE this year, said: "The show has the Christmas theme, which will give it a warm feeling.
"We want to create that Christmas event, the family event that people can look forward to tuning into."
He is sure to be on his best behaviour — otherwise the knitting brigade may just drop their needles in shock.
Fantine has her teeth ripped out in gruesome scene in Les Miserables
- Ball & Boe: A Very Merry Christmas, is on ITV at 9.30pm tonight. Album Back Together is out now.
Alfie Boe Brothers and Sisters
Source: https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/10590888/alfie-poe-bay-boy-opera-les-miserables/
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