From humble beginnings, port star who sang for the Queen

Singer Alfie Boe has been belting out the tunes for many years. A 1990 photograph shows a young Alfie, in Thornton Cleveleys Operatic Society’s production of Oklahoma!

Born on September 29, 1973, in Blackpool, as a young boy, growing up in Fleetwood, Alfie had always dreamed of a career as a singer. He attended St Wulstan’s and St Edmund’s School, followed by Cardinal Allen High School.

His first public performance, aged 14, was at Fleetwood’s Marine Hall in a Songs from the Shows presentation, organised by local singing teacher Lottie Dawson.

At 17, Alfie became an apprentice mechanic at the TVR factory, in Bispham. He enjoyed entertaining colleagues by singing opera arias while he polished cars, and one day was overheard by a client with connections in the music industry who was so impressed he suggested he should go to London and audition for the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company.

His audition was a success and Alfie moved to London to study at the Royal College of Music, the National Opera Studio and the Royal Opera House’s Vilar Young Artists Programme.

In 1999, he sang Ernesto for Scottish Opera in their Opera-Go-Round production of Don Pasquale, touring widely throughout Scotland. In 2002, he was picked to take the lead in Baz Luhrmann’s La Boheme on Broadway.

In 2010, Alfie performed as Jean Valjean in a performance of the musical Les Misérables, at the O2 Arena in London to celebrate the show’s 25th anniversary, a role he later took at the Queen’s Theatre, London, and the Imperial Theatre in New York.

He performed on the balcony of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, has performed for English National Opera and of course, at Lytham Proms, in 2012.