He’s all too aware that the nation has long viewed him as a copycat Cliff, the star of Summer Holiday in Blackpool, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in London’s West End or, if they can remember far enough back, the golden boy of Opportunity Knocks who performed impressions of Neil Sedaka.
Now the one-time housewives’ favourite will have to convince us he can be a rock singer too, starring in We Will Rock You, the musical based on Queen songs about teenagers who are banned from playing musical instruments.
Day will have to prove to most people he has a voice than can stretch beyond the simple chord constructions of On The Beach or Any Dream Will Do.
“It is scary,” he admits of the pressures in stepping into the high-heeled shoes of the late Freddie Mercury. “Freddie’s voice was just awesome. Recently, I’ve been working really hard on my falsetto because when you sing something like Seven Seas of Rye you realise Freddie could take a song to heights few could even hope to reach. But this is a great challenge for me.”
Day also had to convince the Queen contingent he was up to the job. “If I’m truthful, I’ve been used to being offered gigs,” he says. “But this was different.
Special. And risky because no-one had ever heard me sing rock songs before. Certainly, no-one had heard me sing Queen songs. So I went along and I sang for Brian May and Roger Taylor, who were lovely men. They said, ‘Do you know It’s A Kinda Magic’ and I said ‘Of course!’ and sang for them, which was incredibly daunting. Then I read for Ben Elton.
“I was excited – and flattered – to meet these people. But at the same time I was scared silly. I knew that so much depended upon this performance and I wanted this gig so badly.”
So much? That’s an understatement. Day had gone from being a national theatre and television star to appearing in small revues, including a tour of Hello Dolly! last year which came to Edinburgh Festival Theatre. Along the way he’s lost several fortunes. He’s had to contend with a cocaine habit so fierce it left him penniless. He explains how he believes the addiction came about.
“I’d done Opportunity Knocks in 1987 and I thought I was all set to become the new Bobby Davro. But it didn’t happen for me. I collapsed back into the obscurity of working men’s clubs, back doing £50 a night club gigs pretending to be Neil Diamond and Neil Sedaka. And it was awful. One night, for example, I played Manchester Police Club, where they thought I was a southern gay boy and started throwing food at me. I remember at one point being hit on the face by a hard, crusty roll. But I kept going. Thankfully, I knew that my Bowie was good and I managed to win the audience over with my Life On Mars.
“But just as I seemed trapped in clubland forever, five years later I went up for Joseph, auditioning with hundreds of others hoping to follow on from Philip Schofield, who’d taken over from Jason Donovan. And this was a real dream for me. I’d always loved the Paladium because my grandfather used to take me to shows there when I was five. But of course, I had no chance of landing the part, did I? Even though I felt I’d done well at auditions with Andrew Loyd Webber.
“When my agent called to tell me the news I remember I was in Marks & Spencer’s in Golder’s Green buying a dinner for one and he simply said, ‘The Dreamcoat’s yours.’ Wow. I was stunned senseless. And of course the Dreamcoat then brought me stardom beyond anything I could ever have imagined. I went on to land a three-year contract with LWT and then a five-year deal with theatre group Apollo Leisure. I was wearing the Dreamcoat for real.
“Yet I wasn’t ready for this level of success. No-one warns you of what’s to come. And I was a red-blooded 24-year-old and I wanted to have a good time. That’s when the madness kicked in. My life soon descended into chaos.”
That chaos continued in 1994 when he landed the lead in theatre show Summer Holiday. “In fact it was Simon Cowell who produced the Cliff tribute CD, Summer Holiday. Simon was my A&R guy and we released the single to promote the album and didn’t think it would chart. But it shot in and suddenly we had to do Top Of The Pops and make a video. I was in Blackpool at the time so we shot the video at the seafront, directed by Simon. The song stayed in the Top 40 for four weeks.”
Day became the new Cliff by day, but by night he turned into a far darker creature. His life had descended into the classic drug and alcohol-fuelled haze. He spent fortunes. And along the way he dated, to use a euphemism, lots of girls.
It’s not hard to see why a clutch of telly and pop babes (Anna Friel, Susannah Shaw, Isla Fisher, Tracy Shaw and Tara Newley among them) all fell at his sandaled feet. He’s likeable. He has real warmth and an innocence. And when he offers hugs it seems natural rather than showbiz protocol. His heart is on his sleeve. And when you add drugs to an immature mind the combination is explosive.
Yet the twist is if he had been a rock star, Day’s excesses would most likely have been celebrated. The tabloids wouldn’t have viewed him as “love-rat Day” and a bigger cheat than Ben Johnson and Major Charles Ingram combined.
“That’s so true. I remember during Joseph I made an appearance on The Big Breakfast, going straight to the studio from a nightclub, and I was unshaven, wearing a leather jacket. I looked like I’d been out all night. My management company, who also looked after Philip Schofield, a squeaky-clean, family-friendly operation, went nuts. When I came off air I got one phone call after the other yelling, ‘What the f*** have you been doing?’
“Now, if I’d been Liam Gallagher or Paul Weller it would have been fine to appear on TV like that. But not when you are billed as the new Cliff Richard.”
The irony is that now Day is in the process of achieving rock-singer status, he’s given up drugs, married a lovely dancer called Stephanie and become a devoted dad.
“The fiance thing was a bit exaggerated,” he offers, smiling. “Someone once wrote in a national paper that I had been engaged nine times. No wonder the comedians were calling me Lord of the Rings. In fact, it was three. And three engagements by the age of 40 isn’t overly excessive. Is it?
“My life is in order now and I’m grateful for having survived my experiences. Now I’m getting another chance to do what I love to do, and that’s to get on stage and sing.”
Does he have any worries about turning into Mercury?
“I don’t worry too much,” he says. “I’m pretty confident about the singing. The only thing I’m concerned about is flu. I can’t bear the thought of coming down with the lurgy.”
He adds, with a wicked laugh, “If you lose your voice you’re bollocksed. Ain’t ya?”
We Will Rock You runs at Edinburgh Playhouse from Wednesday to January 9.
