In an exclusive new interview, Female First were given the chance to chat to showbusiness extraordinaire Johnny Partridge about his debut album out next Monday, his time in EastEnders and much more. Find out what he had to say about it all below.

Johnny Partridge

You're gearing up to release your debut album next week...

I know! Can you believe it?

...has this always been something you wanted to do?

If I'm honest, no. I've been asked to make a record lots of times. Different sorts of records I suppose and I guess with my musical theatre background they would have been in that type of vein of record. And, even though I make my money doing musicals, I'm not really the sort of person that comes home and puts them on my sound system when I get in! (laughs) It's not really the way I like to relax at home, I'm not really a Showtune Queen!

So it's not really been something I've ever wanted to do.

I did a one man show last year called Dames N Dudes at The Hippodrome Casino, and it was a little show I kind of did for me, I had no real expectation of it, and I don't think anyone else had any real expectation of it! (laughs) And, it was received really well, and I think - I'm known for lots of things right now to lots of different people, so either you know me from my West End career, or you know me for the vests in EastEnders, or maybe you know me for giving you your lottery numbers on a Saturday night. My audience is quite diverse and once all those people came together at The Hippodrome, they kind of went: 'Oh, that's what you do.', and essentially that is what I do.

So, I did the show, it was quite successful and people liked it and it was suggested to me that maybe I'd like to take the show out on the road, maybe I'd like to make this project a little bigger, and then it was also suggested to me that to do that, a good thing to do would be to bring out a record, and that would help take the tour or show on the road.

That's really how the record came about. I was going to do all this last year, but obviously my mum has Alzheimer's and dementia, and we were at a very delicate stage last year. Everything kind of got put on hold. I lost a little bit of drive for it, I wasn't necessarily in a good place. I was thinking: 'What's the point? Everything's horrible', you know? Then, in the course of moving my mum out of the family home to live with us as a family, things started to get better.

There are positive ways you can look at dementia, don't get me wrong. It is still not great, but it is better, and in her getting better, it helps me to heal a little too, and to deal with that situation too.

And so then, I was like: 'she wouldn't have wanted me to not go out there and pursue the things I want to pursue', and so at the start of this year we were like: 'let's do this, let's get back on the horse' as it were, and that's what we did, and we made a record and it's something I am really proud of.

I am slightly anxious of it now because obviously you make a record - I've not made one before so I don't really know - but it's a very personal thing. You're on your own for quite a lot of that time in a little studio with earphones on, not talking to anybody. You go: 'that's really great' or 'that's not very good' - you don't really have anybody else's view on it, and then you suddenly go: 'oh no, now everyone's got to listen to it, and everyone's gonna write about it, and some of them are gonna be great, and some of them are gonna be awful', and I'm gonna have to deal with that.

But it's something I'm very proud of, and it's been fun, and I'm looking now forward to getting out there and people hearing it, and playing it, and performing it live. That's the bit that I love and that's what I actually made the record for, so now all the good bit comes. It's good.

There are a few original tracks on the record, how personal are these to you?

They're very personal to me. There's one called 'Stop For A Minute' which is kind of about my mum's situation and how I feel about that, and how I've dealt with that, and I am hoping to release that as a single for The Alzheimer's Society, all the proceeds going to Alzheimer's at Christmas.

I will be doing a new record in the New Year and that will all be original material. We did toy with the idea of it all being original material this time but I think, because some people are making the leap from Johnny the TV person to Johnny the singer, they kind of go: 'you sing!?' and I'm like: 'well actually that's what I've done for 30 years, really, the other stuff came later but this is what I do', so I think sometimes when you do some covers, it kind of eases people in to what it is you do.

I think lots of covers on my album people won't have necessarily have heard. I think they may think they're my own tracks anyway. We have 'Johnnyfied' them as I like to say!

But yeah, songwriting is something that I enjoy, it's something I've always enjoyed. I know that people may think you're doing Dolly Parton to Nine Inch Nails, that's quite a jump! And it is quite a jump, but I am quite a jump! I like to go to ballet and the opera, but I also like to dance until 6'o'clock in the morning in Soho and do that walk of shame at 8'o'clock.

I'm very eclectic, my style is very eclectic, my lifestyle is very eclectic and the album is no different to that. But I think through production we've made a cohesive record, and all the songs that I sing, songs I choose to cover, they are by storytellers and they have a very strong narrative. The narrative of a song is very important to me, I like them to have beginnings, middles and ends and each song is its own little story, and my own music is no different to that, so it is very cohesive in that sense.

But I know that on paper you may look at that and go: 'wow! That's a jump!', but that's what it is!

You've obviously got a musical background, is this something that's always been very natural for you?

It is something that's natural for me. I love the studio process. I love the songwriting process. It's like dress-up really - dress-up for the mind, songwriting! You get to go into yourself and create worlds and characters for yourself, and that's the way I look at it, it's like dress-up for the mind.

Johnny Partridge

With such an expansive showbiz career, what have been some of your highlights?

Do you know what? As my mother would say my eyes are bigger than my belly, and I'm greedy, and I love it all, you know? I've loved it all.

I've loved it from going into Cats at 16, to jumping into something like EastEnders with no television experience, to doing gymnastics at 43 on Tumble... I've been really, really lucky that somehow I've been able to do a little bit of everything. Jack of all trades, master of none you might like to say, but it's something that's given me longevity.

I'm 43 right now, I went into Cats when I was 16, I've been doing this a long time and somehow people keep hiring me! (laughs) I keep getting asked back! So, I must be doing something right. And I really have enjoyed them all for different reasons, because I've managed to have lots of different experiences, and I've managed to as I've gotten older, still be able to find those new experiences, and that's what's important for me.

I'm 43 this year and it would be very easy to take your foot off the pedal. You get to that point where: 'I've got a very comfortable home life, I'm married to a beautiful man', sometimes you go: 'maybe now's the time to literally put my feet up, and start watching EastEnders at 7.30pm!' (laughs) But, it's just not like that for me.

This year was about new things, it was about having new experiences. With my mum's illness and that I just thought I want to do fun things. I wanna do things that I'm really going to enjoy, and that's kind of coloured my choices in some ways this year, and maybe it will continue to colour my choices now. You don't know what's around the corner, you never know what's around the corner, and especially in life or in this business it can turn on a dime. Your show can close, your contract can not be renewed - there are so many things that can happen - so I think it's really important just to, you know - I've never really been the sort of person that looks far ahead, or too far behind in a way, because I just think, what's the point? I've never been one of those people that has a five year game plan: 'this time in five years I wanna be here' - I've never really been like that and I think that's why my career has been eclectic.

But even more so now I don't do that, because you know, you never know what life is gonna throw at you, so it's fun. It's been quite the year. It's been marked with sadness but it's also been a lot of new beginnings as well in many different ways.

You've helped pave the way for gay soap storylines during your time on EastEnders, how does it feel to be part of something so groundbreaking?

I'm immensely proud of Christian and the stories that we told. I was there five years, I can't believe I was there five years but I was there five years, and it's so hard to tell a gay story at 7.30 in the evening in a mainstream flagship show, and I feel honoured that the BBC were brave enough to do that, to take that risk. The story of Christian and Syed, it was really about what you didn't see as opposed to what you did see.

Dominic Treadwell-Collins who at that time created - obviously now he's the executive producer of the show, he's going from strength to strength now - but at that time he created my character and he was the story producer, and he was responsible for coming up with that character and those stories, and they were really clever not to alienate people. We didn't show them anything too graphic, we invited them in and it really just became a story about two people who were in love in impossible circumstances, immaterial of gender and that was a beautiful thing, it's something I'm really proud of. I've never had an adverse reaction from anybody in the street, it was never anything like that, I only ever had positive comments from people, and that is something I'm really, really, really proud of, and I will always look on it fondly, but I'm glad not to be vests anymore! (laughs)

You've touched on my next question there really, you did return for Lucy Beale's funeral, can you see yourself returning full-time in the future?

Johnny returned to EastEnders for Lucy Beale's funeral / Credit: BBC

You know, with mum's condition, my life has changed now through that, and I can't commit to that sort of, I don't know whether I could commit to that sort of - obviously life is an ever-changing thing and your situation changes, but right now it wouldn't be right for me. Like I say, I never look too far back, and I never look too far forward, so to answer that question is something that I can't really, I can't really answer that, as you don't know. As it stands right now, I have no plans to go back there full-time. Obviously I enjoyed it, I'm immensely proud of it, but you do have to as an actor move on and you do have to find new challenges, and like I said before, it is about new things for me. This year has been about new beginnings and I'm hoping next year continues in the same vein.

Who's your money on for killing Lucy?

Now if I told you that I'd have to kill you, so! (laughs)

And are there plans to tour the whole country after your London show on September 17?

Yeah, I am looking to go out on a much bigger tour next year. Obviously I've launched the album, then I've gotta go up to Swansea at Christmas, as my Christmas season starts, panto starts. It wouldn't be Christmas without panto! I'm off to Swansea Grand to slap my thighs for four weeks. I shall be padding my thighs and off I go.

Then once we get into the New Year and once I get back out of slaying dragons and saving princesses - because that's the most pressing thing I have to do over Christmas - I will be going up and down the country, yeah, taking the album on the road before we get back into the studio, in around April next year, to start the new record which is also really exciting.

Johnny Partridge's debut album ‘Dudes Dames + Cowboys Too’ is out on September 15th on Big Hand Records.
Live show: Borderline, London - September 17th , 2014

by for www.femalefirst.co.uk
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