"Everything My Heart Desires" by Adam Rickitt

At first it was just a song I liked. Then, one day, curiosity got the better of me*, and I went looking for a picture of its singer - just to help me put a face to a name, you understand; goodness knows, I liked what I saw well enough - but then, that's no surprise, since British pop music has recently developed a disdain for uggos which is practically American. So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I saw that it was his birthday and went looking for the video of the song I liked sung by the guy I thought was cute so I could post it here. And that's when it started to get weird...

That's when I read the bio of Adam Rickitt - expecting the usual scant detail and dull sameness one gleans from the bumf of most pop tarts - and stumbled upon a story worthy of the greatest writer, or even me. The discovery of a middle class upbringing didn't surprise me, but the revelations that he went through a bout of bulimia did. Even the appearance on Coronation Street (in which he was the second actor to play Nick Tilsley) made sense, as the soap once famous for its old boots and crochety coots inexorably drifts into a showcase for any pretty face capable of sounding even vaguely Mancunian**.

So given the face and the visible abs and the eating disorder and the performance of pop music - plus the fact that as Nick Tilsley he was responsible for Corrie's first all-male liplock (with Todd Grimshaw, played by Bruno Langley) - that he had once upon a time courted the gay community to establish his fan base sort of made sense. His involvement with the Conservative Party, though, only fits because Rickitt himself seems to be a raging closet case; then again, he may just be a typical actor, which means he's definitely a raging closet case.

Rickitt's flirtation with politics***, though, seems to have been even shorter than his pop career, which spawned a six record deal with Polydor, one actual album (2000's ironically titled Good Times) and three singles - each with less impact than the previous one, this being the second of them - following which he was unceremoniously dropped by his label. A whirl through the shallow morass of reality television seems to have encouraged him to decamp to New Zealand, where he's currently appearing on television as Kieran Mitchell in the drama Shortland Street. Since his emigration he's been accused of shoplifting from an Auckland grocery store.

All of which leads me to think a) we haven't heard the last of Adam Rickitt, and b) what batshit crazy thing is he going to do next? Only time - and the Pop Culture Institute - will tell...

*Either that or I was high.
**Although, to be fair, Christopher Quinten - who played Brian Tilsley in the 1970s and 80s - was pretty hot. Not Michael Le Vell (Kevin Webster) hot; then again I never was that fond of blondes. But I digress...
**He was a prospective parliamentary candidate for the Tories in the Cheshire riding of Macclesfield near where he was raised; an outcry by the riding's longtime MP Sir Nicholas Winterton put a swift end to that.
*