The singer has temporarily traded in pop stardom for a challenging theatre role. He discusses why he wants to quit music at 50 and why he’s no longer ‘ashamed’ of being single
Just days before this engagement at his south London home, Will Young was blissed-out, sunning himself on a beach in southern Mexico. Through his earlier years in the entertainment industry, the musician turned actor, author and activist is not sure he made looking after himself a priority. Now the 44-year-old has self-care rituals that he firmly sticks to. Taking work-free holidays helps, as does regular therapy. “And I quite religiously only look at my diary the night before,” Young says. “Living day to day, so I don’t worry about what’s coming up and panic.”
Having only just finished a tour celebrating the two decades since he won Pop Idol, there is now a book on anxiety in the works and his mental health fundraising initiative Wellstock; and after cuffing himself to a beagle breeding facility in Cambridgeshire last year, he is plotting to get the site shut down permanently. So breaking his own rule on the Oaxaca coast, Young briefly checked the timeline for his upcoming acting gig: a new production of Song from Far Away, a one-man play by the Olivier and Tony award-winning playwright Simon Stephens. “I thought it was opening on 22 March, so felt very relaxed. I was ahead of the game. And then I saw in my calendar: oh fuck, it opens February.” Suffice to say, line-learning kicked off immediately.
