Adam Faith: interviewed January 2003

1:57pm Thursday 16th January 2003

Love and Marriage, Churchill Theatre, High Street, Bromley, Jan 21-25, 7.45pm, £14-£20, 020 8460 6677

Pop music phenomenon, acclaimed acting talent, financial guru and record producer Adam Faith is to return to the stage once more, this time in a light-hearted comedy charting the dilemmas faced within marriage.

The original Pop Idol will be starring in Donald Churchill's Love and Marriage in Bromley.

Faith is no stranger to acting. He has already starred in a number of films, TV shows and West End hits but has not appeared on stage for seven years and he told Leisuretime he can't wait to get back.

He said: "I cherish the thought of performing to a live audience again. I play Bill, a philanderer, in a light-hearted show which I hope an audience can relate to."

Bill is a golf-playing dentist whose shenanigans with younger women means he continually lies to his wife. His attitude to marriage is ambivalent, to say the least. In fact, in the play the character says "All my life I've had one motto in marriage ... if you're going to do it, Bill, do it and shut up. What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over."

How did Faith take to the role of philanderer? "It's not a personal thing, a play is either well written, in which case it's easy to perform, or it is badly written, in which case it's difficult."

The performer has been busy filming episodes of the BBC's Murder in Mind while he rehearsed for Love and Marriage.

He said: "I'm working harder now than ever before. I couldn't turn down the BBC job because I've never been offered the opportunity of killing three or four people on screen before!"

But the romantics in the audience need not worry: the show in Bromley is more traditional Faith material, a light-hearted tale of love.

He may have already had a distinguished career on stage and screen but it is not acting which has been the high point of Faith's varied working life. He said it was the buzz of journalism he loved the most.

"I had a financial page to write in the Mail on Sunday where I'd give tips on shares. I worked there for two and a half years. Nothing compares to the burst of energy felt on a newsroom floor when a big story breaks. I loved working with the editors: David English for one."

Are there other fields this adaptable man would like to conquer?

"I'd like to be a geneticist to be honest," he confessed, "but there are limits to what I can do now. For my dream to come true I'd have to be 20 years old again, heading off to a blue chip university."

It does seem unlikely he will realise this particular dream but the science world's lose is the acting world's gain and with Adam Faith, you just never know ...