Gareth Gates

Gareth Paul Gates (born 12 July 1984, Bradford, England) is an English singer-songwriter. He was the runner-up in the first series of the ITV talent show Pop Idol. Gates has sold over 3.5 million records in the UK. He is also known for having a stutter, and has talked about his speech impediment publicly. Gates used the McGuire Programme to manage the problem and is now a speech coach with the programme. In 2009, Gates moved into musical theatre, playing the title role in the West End production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat at the Adelphi Theatre. He has recently completed an eighteen month stint as Marius, initially in the touring production and then in the West End production of Les Misérables and took the role of Eddie in the musical Loserville in 2012.