Shoving a sausage roll in his mouth, Shane doesn’t even wait to swallow before he starts chatting, spluttering odd bits of pastry everywhere as he enthusiastically discusses anything and everything.
In fact, Shane Richie is officially the biggest chatterbox to walk the Earth. We meet him at a rehearsal hall where he’s practising panto (singing a bit of High School Musical, no less), and persuading the cast and crew to add in a few ‘p*ss take’ gags about his new-found Country music career.
Self-deprecating, funny and charming, dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and a baseball cap, he’s still the chirpy Cockney women go ever-so-slightly weak at the knees for, even after seeing him inspect laundry baskets on the iconic Daz adverts. And you know someone is old-skool showbiz when they say nice to ‘see’ you instead of ‘meet’ you, because they don’t know if they’ve ever met you before. With almost 40 years in the industry, he knows how to be a smoothie.
Now, almost overnight, he’s become a bona fide Country singer, keeping much more established acts off the top spot as his album, A Country Soul, smashes records. He’s even planning an epic American tour.
As well as being a showbiz triple-threat (acting, singing, dancing), he’s dad to two sons, (Shane Jr, 28, and Jake, 25, a singer in pop band Rixton) with ex-wife Coleen Nolan, and has son Mackenzie, 11, and daughters Lolita, nine, and Romani, six, with wife of 10 years Christie.
With lots of name-dropping (we get Judi Dench , Babs Windsor , Tony Hadley and Liam Gallagher in one story alone), the EastEnders star who played iconic Alfie Moon tells us he has a whole lot of action to serve us up yet…
What’s life like in Richie Towers now you’re a musician?
Chaos. Christie wants me to go on tour, so I’ll be out of the bleeding house and she can have the remote. I have the kids doing panto with me. And the mornings are mental. The kids want to use my shower, so I end up in their bathroom using bloody Disney Princess shower gel and I’m sat on the train to work smelling of f***ing Pocahontas and Belle.
Shane and wife Christie (Image: Getty)
How rock ’n’ roll is the tour going to get?
Is Country rock ’n’ roll? Back in the day I used to party hard with my band in hotels and all that rubbish, but I’m not sure I can any more. It’s an endurance test now. Stamina required.
What’s the most rock ’n’ roll thing you’ve ever done?
I got up one morning and just got a flight to LA without telling anyone, because I had nothing to do.
There was literally nothing else to do?
Well, no one was about to do anything, you know? I do recall thinking, ‘What the hell am I doing?’ when I landed. I had nowhere to stay. I just bummed about for a bit. Hired a Harley and rode it in leather chaps. I was single then, though.
What kind of dad are you?
I’m the dad who whispers to my kids when Mum sends them up to bed, ‘Come back down in 10 minutes and we’ll watch some more TV, but shhh.’
Do your kids think it’s cool you’re on TV?
My daughter used to get upset when women of a certain age would shove Mummy out of the way to get to Daddy. But she’s starting to get it. The other day she had the saddest face and said, ‘Everyone at school says you’re married to someone called Kat and not Mummy.’ I told her that was Daddy’s pretend person and the look on her face when she realised I wasn’t illegally married to someone else was priceless.
As Alfie Moon (Image: BBC)
Are all your awards out at home?
I give a lot of them to charities. But I did win Telly’s Sexiest Male four years on the trot when I was in my 40s, overweight and with bad skin, so I keep those. I have all of Alfie Moon’s shirts too. I auction them off, family have some, certain friends…
Please say your best mate Tony Hadley has one…
I think I’m more a fan of Tony’s. When I was 15 I was Spandau Ballet’s biggest fan and now he’s one of my best mates. Although he’s a bit older than me, which he won’t mind me saying. But now we get to sing together all the time and it’s like an out-of-body experience for me. He’s sung at loads of my family members’ weddings. I sang at a PTA meeting with him once. When we get together, we’ll sit in front of the TV with sausage, egg, bacon and mugs of tea. Talking about work we need doing in the garden. We’re two ultimate dads.
What are your fans like?
Great. I know why people get excited. At the height of Alfie and Kat madness, when we were drawing in 16 million viewers and Nana Moon died in my arms, people stopped me a lot and I knew what it meant to them. Stormzy stopped me recently and was going, ‘You’re Alfie Moon man!’ he wanted to chat about EastEnders, but I wanted to talk about Grime. I’ll always be kind. I never want to blow the illusion of what people think I am.
So this niceness is all an act?
Oh, I can get into a mood that’ll last days. It used to be worse, I’d be the biggest grump. But now I think, I’ve been doing this 39 years and I haven’t got another 39 years to do it. So I do what I enjoy now and if anyone wants to slag me off, fine. I never look back any more.
Any regrets?
I sort of regret making a movie called Shoreditch. I lost everything financially for it. We needed more money to finish it, so I ended up re-mortgaging, borrowing, selling everything I had. I went bankrupt. I managed to lift about three minutes of the footage out of the film to send as my EastEnders audition and got the job. So Alfie Moon cost me 690k. The most expensive casting I’ve ever had in my life.
Do you regret the Daz ads?
Oh Jesus, they are bittersweet for me. I was on a roll and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do a cheesy commercial. My manager said, ‘Never say no to a gig, just price yourself out of it.’ So we asked for ridiculous money knowing they’d say it was too much.
Shane in the Daz advert
But it wasn’t?
Nope. It was life-changing cash and all for 21 days work over two years. It brought me riches, but it closed so many doors. I remember going to an audition for a prestigious drama and I heard from the other side of the door, ‘We’ve got that prat in from the Daz ad.’ But it was silly money. We bought a big house, we had a place in Orlando, any car we wanted… But it was a very irritating advert.
Biggest Hollywood moment?
Hugh Jackman , the b*st*rd, dragging me down a massive slide at the premiere for the film Flushed Away we did together. No one knew who I was on the red carpet amongst the A-listers. Two British women shouted, ‘Oi, Alfie, what are you doing here?’ and I was thinking, ‘Please someone ask me for an autograph.’
Is Hugh Jackman the most famous person in your phone?
We’re pals. He once took me to this speakeasy in New York. Being led down scary alleyways with actual Wolverine was intense. Tom Cruise and I are mates too. We used to go Go Karting together. Nicole Kidman was in the West End and so was I, so me and Tom and two mates would meet up at 11pm and race Go Karts all night until the early hours. He’s lovely. Some people are d*cks. But mainly the reality stars.
What would you be doing if the acting hadn’t worked out?
Pontins possibly. I used to love entertaining there. I’d do a ramble with 200-300 people and I’d take them to the woods and make up all sorts of sh*t facts and half-way through I’d lose the group, strip off and run naked through the woods. The other Blue Coats would say, ‘I’m so sorry, we appear to have walked into a nudist area.’ People save up so much for these holidays and I hope that they had the best holiday ever. They have chalets named after me at Pontins now.
Can you tell us what Kat and Alfie are up to right now?
The pair of them are living in Spain, with the babies, running a pub somewhere on the Costa Del Sol. I think we’re alive and well. And you never know, we might be needed for something urgent back at Albert Square. Who knows.
In Kat and Alfie spin-off Redwater (Image: BBC Pictures)
Are you excited for Christmas?
Yes, because I love seeing it through the kids’ eyes. When Santa arrives, he arrives in style at our house.
Ever dressed up as Santa?
I have done, but now the kids ask to see the real man himself instead. I explain that’ll never happen as he only comes when you’re asleep. That’s how the magic happens.
Who cooks the turkey?
About 20 of us go out somewhere on Christmas Day. Get up, Santa’s delivery, run around trying to find batteries, because we never have enough
for the poxy presents and Santa never remembers. Then it’s lunch, a G&T and karaoke into the early hours. I sing Footloose.
What’s on your list?
Vouchers to buy lots of geeky toys from Forbidden Planet. I have a big collection.
Shane’s album A Country Soul, is out now.
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