From his stint as Andy Sugden van Emmerdale to his win at Strictly Come DancingKelvin Fletcher is one of TV’s most famous faces, but he’s about to be seen like never before — literally, given the dashing new mustache he’s sporting.
It’s for his last role in the play Jack Absolute Flies Again, and he admits he’s quite impressed with his new look. ‘If I have seen someone’ [with a moustache], I’m gone, ‘Go on!’ Because sometimes you feel like it’s quite a bally move [to have one]not true?’
What does his wife Liz think of the new facial jewelry, I wonder? Having recently given birth to their twins, Maximus and Mateusz, “I don’t think she really gets noticed,” he jokes. “I went home and thought, ‘Do you find anything else?’ and she went, ‘Oh yes, yes. Anyway…,’ and then gave me a baby and that was it.’
Indeed, there hasn’t been much time lately to admire mustaches or anything else in the Fletcher household. In 2021 Kelvin and Liz bought a farm in the Peak District, documenting their newfound life in the countryside in the BBC series Kelvin’s Big Farming Adventure. And now, in addition to taking responsibility for both the farm and four young children, Kelvin is back in what he says is his first ‘true professional play’ – and no less at the National Theatre.
An adaptation of Restoration comedy The Rivals, and set during WWIIJack Absolute Flies Again is highly anticipated, co-written by Richard Bean, the man responsible for the National’s mega-hit, One Man, Two Guvnors.
In a similar vein, Jack Absolute promises to provide plenty of high-precision slapstick comedy while also being deeply emotional, Kelvin says. “We’ve just rehearsed the last scene, and it’s tragic… you come out of the theater feeling deeply moved.”
Amid the play’s various OTT personalities, Kelvin’s character, Dudley Scunthorpe, is the relatively straight male, who finds himself in a love triangle with the titular Jack Absolute and heroine Lydia Languish. Kelvin describes Dudley as a ‘humble’ Northerner who others foolishly underestimate for his ‘simple’ life – ‘but as they all realize later, [his] is the right attitude to have’.
When it comes to underestimation, perhaps Kelvin can sympathize, given the unfair snobbery that former soap actors can sometimes encounter in the industry. Kelvin says it’s just “one of those unfortunate problems,” while insisting that he’s “very proud of where I’m from.”
As it should be – after joining Emmerdale in 1996, he won Best Dramatic Performance at the British Soap Awards at just 15 years old and became the basis of the Yorkshire Dales series for the next two decades. When he left Emmerdale in 2016, it was because “at 32, I was just beginning what I wanted to do artistically,” he says. “I’ve been in the industry for 25 years and I still feel like I haven’t done an awful lot.”
Including, to Jack Absolute, comedy. When he got a call to say he got the part, “My agent was crying. It was a real moment for both of us.’
That aside, lifting the Strictly Glitterball in 2019 was of course a huge moment for him – and one made even more impressive by the fact that he was a last-minute replacement for injured ones. Jamie Laing†
Fans of the show will be happy to know that he uses his dancing skills in Jack Absolute – via a swing number in which he actually teams up with another recent Strictly contestant, Caroline Quentin, playing the famous Mrs. Malaprop. “Every time you look out of the corner of your eye, she’s… [there] does some stretching and she gets into positions where I think “what?!”. She’s like a ballerina,” Kelvin says admiringly.
As multi-talented as Kelvin may be – in addition to his acting and dance performances, he is also a professional race car driver – life on the farm has proven to be a particularly challenging one.
Understandably, playing a farmer in Emmerdale wasn’t much preparation for the real thing. It’s almost like I think I could fix a WWII hurricane plane because I played an airplane mechanic [in Jack Absolute],’ as he puts it.
But now, Kelvin beams, ‘I’ll take the train to London, walk down the South Bank, play at the National, then go back and muck pigs there… it’s the variety that excites me.’ That sounds, dare I say it, like ‘a lot’. “That’s the most polite thing anyone has ever said,” Kelvin says. “Normally we get, ‘Are you crazy?’
‘And you know what? It’s crazy… [but] there will be a time, maybe in five, ten, or twenty years, when we look back, and things are a little more settled – and we’ll just want to relive those chaotic moments.” Despite all his hard work, it’s clear that Kelvin wants to keep acting as his number one priority. “It sounds crazy, but it’s a space where I have absolute peace and I just feel that this is my calling.”
And as for the $64,000 question, will he keep that mustache? “I think so, yes,” he says.
“I was told yesterday that it looks a lot like a 70s porn star, so maybe we should change it,” he laughs. “but I love it anyway.”
Jack Absolute Flies Again is with the National Theatre until 3 Sept.
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