EXCLUSIVE: Charlie Clapham, who has played Freddie Roscoe in Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks since 2013, has spoken out as his original song Time to Ride played out in the show in a huge ‘first’ for the actor
Hollyoaks icon Charlie Clapham has opened up for the first time since one of his original tunes made its way onto the Channel 4 soap.
The actor, famed for his role as Freddie Roscoe, expressed feeling “very privileged” to have his song Time to Ride feature in a tense scene where his character pulled a gun on estranged wife Grace Blake (played by Tamara Wall) in the episode aired on Monday (March 24).
Grace was stunned to see Freddie back in town and even more so when he revealed his intention to sell his share of the garage and leave for good. However, the drama escalated when she discovered he was carrying a weapon.
Sharing the backstory of how his music landed on the show, Charlie said: “I’ve got this song on my TikTok called Time to Ride which started off as poem and I just put music to it.”
“It’s about a guy coming back into town after a while. He’s coming into a storm and he’s got no horse or silver crown but it’s time to ride and I was thinking ‘this really fits’ to the storyline so I went over to the director and I showed him the TikTok.
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“He asked if I had a professional recording and I didn’t so I drove back three hours to my hometown of Leicester that night and called my mate who had a recording studio and I was like ‘we need to record a song tonight’,” reports the Liverpool Echo.
“I recorded it, sent it over to the director and he put it in and showed the executive producer without saying anything. I wasn’t there but I’m told that Hannah [Cheers, executive producer] said ‘I really like this song but I’ve never heard it before, who is it?’ And he just turned around and said ‘It’s Charlie Clapham’.”
He added: “Watching the preview made me feel how I felt when I watched my first episode back in 2013. It hits you then like ‘I’ve got a song playing on national television’ it’s a bit of a buzz.
“They decided to put it in and instead of putting it in the opening of the scene, they put it at the closing part of the scene so it closes out the show. I’m very privileged and honoured that Hannah’s agreed to have it in the show. It doesn’t happen everyday.
“There’s a bit of a duality of my life and Freddie’s life so be able to take some my own feelings, write them down and for them to intertwine with Freddie’s story is pretty cool.”
Time to Ride was one of the first poems Charlie penned when he returned to Liverpool to rejoin Hollyoaks after a seven-year hiatus.
He shared: “When I came back there was an awful lot going on. I was here when I was younger, time had passed and I came back and then within six weeks we found out the show was moving to a new model.
“There was going to be changes and it did very much feel like coming back at the time of a storm and trying to navigate it through. I was sat in the pub one day between filming just writing this poem and then cut to a year later and here we are.”
Hollyoaks fans will have the opportunity to grab Charlie’s track, and there’s more music on the horizon from the soap star.
The actor revealed: “This version of the song was recorded specifically with the show in mind. There will be another release of the song further down the line with a collection of songs in an EP and/or an album but this version is going to be on Bandcamp.
“I’ve been writing poems and little bits and pieces for years but never had anything published, this is a first for me so it’s all new and fresh.”
Hollyoaks airs Monday to Wednesday on E4 at 7pm and first look episodes can be streamed Channel 4 from 7am
Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
