Charles Hutchinson meets the host of ITV's Stars In Their Eyes and discovers he doesn't want fun... he wants joy!

MATTHEW Kelly hosts the Saturday teatime TV show that grants copy cats their 15 minutes of fame. Next Friday, he takes to the York Theatre Royal stage in a play where the central character desperately wanted to avoid celebrity.

Such are the polarities of a state of being that Kelly, the star of Stars In Their Eyes, has known for so much of his adult life.

Famous or not, in the street he would always be an arresting sight at 6ft 5ins tall, with a wild mane of greying hair, a Biblical beard, full-length raincoat trailing in his wake, and a bag slung over his shoulder, but he is all too aware that celebrity status is a double-edged sword.

"When people go back to the theatre from TV, the public assumes they're dead," he says, far from dead, his long and expressive fingers going to work on a mountain range of mussels at an upmarket city restaurant (lunch courtesy of the theatre's marketing budget, proving that fame does have its uses!).

Kelly has always enjoyed combining stage work with his television commitments, and last year he met the Theatre Royal's artistic director, Damian Cruden, when performing in Watford in Tom Stoppard's Rough Crossing, an encounter that sowed the seed of his appearance in York this month.

"Damian said 'What do you want to do?', and I said 'Anything, I'm an actor; give me a shot!' So he came up with a list, and Kafka's Dick was the one that fitted in with the season and the timing was right," recalls Matthew.

As chance would have it, Matthew has ended up playing father and son, Hermann and Czech writer Franz Kafka, with his son, Matthew Rixon. "It's been fantastic in rehearsal, especially because the father and son in Bennett's play hate each other, which is dead good fun," says Kelly.

'Fun' is a word much associated with Matthew Kelly, yet for all the flamboyance and jocularity, you sense he is not into fame for a laugh. "I've been doing Stars In Their Eyes for eight years, but it's not why you join a show, this fame thing," he says.

His love of performing has deeper roots, hence his wish to do stage plays alongside his hosting duties on Stars In Their Eyes.

"I've always hated 'fun'," he says. "There's a line in Willy Russell's book The Wrong Boy where this character says 'I didn't want fun, I wanted joy' and I thought 'that's it, exactly'.

"I get loads of letters that say 'Oh, you look like a fun bloke'. I hate fun. We don't do fun in Britain; we do rain, bouncy castles and 'come and open our fete'."

There is a serious side to Kelly, a professionalism that he brings to his work. While in York, for example, he will be working out each day for an hour at a health and fitness centre in the city. "It's more damage limitation than anything else," says Matthew, who turned 50 last year.

"It gets your blood going; your brain working; and it gives you confidence.

"My daughter had a boyfriend who called working out 'going to the potting shed' and I know what he means. I hate doing it but it has to be done because the benefits are enormous really."

As ever, since his arrival in York on February 19, he has been recognised wherever he goes (carrying Kafka's Dick leaflets in his pocket to hand out to all those who ask him why he's here). "I don't have a problem at all with being spotted, but I suppose the hardest thing about it is that it's all out of kilter," Kelly says. "They 'know' you but you don't know them; and that's an unnatural state. Each Saturday, you're in the corner of their living room, uninvited, and they can be judgmental; you're six inches tall on their telly and they can zap you off screen, so it can freak people out when they see you in town!"

Why do so many people line up for their moment of fame on Stars In Their Eyes, Matthew?

"Fame is relative: there was a time we could all be 'famous' within our own community, when everyone had their own function: farmer, priest, village idiot or whatever.

"Now that we don't really have those communities, how do people prove their existence to the world? The only way to do it is through TV.

"Now, lots of people want to be famous not for actually doing anything or for any reason, but just because they are attracted to fame."

Kelly acknowledges he has "status" from presenting a prime-time TV show.

"It needs a lot of bravery to leave a perfectly good show, and I'm not brave enough yet," he says.

That is the dilemma of celebrity. "Success is finite; fame is infinite, and the best thing you can do is to find out as much about it as possible.

"It's a bit like an illness; the more you find out, the more you can get on with coping with it," Kelly says.

"Once you've gone on this fame journey, you might as well take it to its ultimate conclusion and see what you learn."

FACT FILE

Name: Matthew Kelly

Occupation: Tall, bearded actor and TV presenter

Age: 50

Television breakthrough: Game For A Laugh

Pick of his TV shows: Kelly's Eye, host; You Bet!, host; Stars In Their Eyes, host; Room Service, hotel sitcom, playing Dick Sedgwick; Holding The Fort, comedy, playing Fitz opposite Peter Davison and Patricia Hodge; Relative Strangers, spin-off comedy

Recent theatre work: Tom Stoppard's Rough Crossing at Salisbury and Watford; premiere of Ivan Menchell's The Surprise Party; The Cabinet Of Doktor Caligari at Nottingham and Hammersmith

Where, when and why in York: York Theatre Royal, March 16 to April 7, playing Hermann Kafka in Alan Bennett's comedy Kafka's Dick. Tickets: £7 to £14.25 with concessions available; ring 01904 623568.

Updated: 12:25 Friday, March 09, 2001