Former Stars In Their Eyes host Matthew Kelly talks ahead of Pride and Prejudice at Birminghams REP - interview

Matthew Kelly became a household name in Game For A Laugh before featuring in You Bet! and Stars In Their Eyes – the latter of which most people under 30 will know him for. During the 90s, he was as popular with mainstream audiences as Ant and Dec are today.

And then he got into acting. Or, to be more precise, he returned to the stage.

He'd started his career at Liverpool's Everyman Theatre among a golden era of performers. His peers included the Oscar-nominated and much-missed Shropshire thesp Pete Postlethwaite, the BAFTA-winning Brummie Julie Walters, Antony Sher, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, and more. Seldom has a theatre produced such a crop of talent. And Kelly was at the heart of it.

Kelly said: "The Everyman was massively important. When you consider the talents all growing up together, all sharing a stage: it's incredible. We all went on to the West End as well and did funny peculiar together.

"I think we all worked together for around three years. The whole era was different."

He doesn't dwell on the past, however. Rather than looking back through rose-tinted shades, he looks to the present and the future. "The standard of work is still going on. When we all went up for the 40th anniversary of The Everyman, actors from every decade did some work. We thought we were the bees knees, but as each decade went along it got better and better."

He remembers Postlethwaite, star of Brassed Off and In The Name Of The Father, with huge affection. "I loved him," he recalls. "It's very sad that Pete's not around. He was a brilliant actor."

Little wonder, therefore, that Kelly is perfectly happy treading the boards – rather than looking back in anger that his TV career went south.

"I just like working to be honest with you. I must have an insatiable desire to be the centre of attention…." He laughs at his own joke.

"I love TV work and I love filming. I like being in a sound booth doing a one-line commercial. But theatre is important and it has the strongest voice of all. People come out of their homes and sit in a darkened room with strangers who have paid money for the privilege.

"The actors have the opportunity to deliver something that might help others to empathise with their fellow man. It certainly has a more powerful relevance than TV or film.

"If you do TV, it might be powerful while you're doing it. But when it's broadcast, you end up in the corner of a living room, you're only six-inches tall and the viewer can turn you up or down or off."

Kelly is at Birmingham's REP from Tuesday until November 12 in a new production of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted for the stage by Simon Reade.

The cast will feature Felicity Montagu as Mrs Bennet, Matthew Kelly as Mr Bennet, Tafline Steen as Elizabeth Bennet, Benjamin Dilloway as Mr Darcy and Doña Croll as Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

One of the most universally loved and quintessentially English novels of all time, Pride and Prejudice tells the story of the Bennet family and their five unmarried daughters. A family of humble means, Mr and Mrs Bennet see the perfect opportunity to improve their social standing when the wealthy Mr Bingley and his eligible friend Mr Darcy move to the neighbourhood. But while Bingley takes an immediate liking to their eldest daughter Jane, the dismissive Darcy instantly clashes with the Bennet's headstrong second daughter, Elizabeth. As the Bennet sisters haplessly search for love in Jane Austen's ultimate romantic comedy, it is Mr Darcy who unwittingly finds his match.

Kelly loves it. "It's an iconic piece by Jane Austen and I love this production. It's clever and fast, moving and funny. I'd never read Pride and Prejudice before we started. I had my own prejudice against it because I thought it was chiclit. But then I got into it and it's a fantastic story and it's very, very funny.

"Part of the reason I'm doing this is because of Felicity Montagu. We did a series on TV 30 years ago and it bombed. But we got on and I knew she would be brilliant in this. She plays a woman on the edge, she goes for it in reality.

"When it was first written, Pride and Prejudice would have been performed in the open air. Now we've bought it indoors. Thankfully, there's no possibility of it being rained off."

Kelly is familiar with the REP and the last thing he did in Birmingham was a community production of Don Quixote. "Halfway through there was a terrible bomb scare. It was the week after 7/7. So we had to evacuate to the Ring Road. I've got half a Don Quixote left in me if anyone wants to see it."

Kelly loves performing works by great writers and it was the quality of the prose that attracted him to Pride and Prejudice.

"I think more great acting comes out of comedy because it makes it real. As far as work is concerned, I'm not sure I have a preference as long as it's good writing. That's why I've gone back to this. Other people can be more succinct and erudite than I can ever be and say the things that I would like to but don't have the words for."

Although he enjoyed TV but doesn't miss it, particularly. "I had a lovely time while I was doing TV but at the same time I was still doing my theatre work. In those days there were only three channels you could be seen by 20 million people on one show. But I'm a pensioner now, I'm not Ant and Dec, who, I have to say, are marvellous. And I am devoted to the X Factor.

"It's a weird thing. I love the company of actors. They are kind and generous and supportive. I can't be in a dressing room on my own, I have to share one. What's the point of being on your own, it's just not right. Larking about is part of the bonding and the trust."

By Andy Richardson