Emmerdale’s Fred Kettle reveals different approach to work due to diagnosis
When Dylan Penders debuted in Emmerdale as part of April Windsor’s (Amelia Flanagan) heart breaking homelessness storyline, it was incredibly clear that actor Fred Kettle was something special.
As April adjusted to life on the streets, Dylan took her under his wing and brought her to a squat, while working as a prostitute to support his drug habit. Kind but so utterly broken, Fred Kettle’s performance was lauded throughout the dark storyline.
So lauded was his performance, and so quickly taken in by viewers was he, that he later returned as a full time character by popular demand after April’s dad, Marlon Dingle (Mark Charnock), planted drugs on him to sever his relationship with her.
Off-screen, Dylan had been groomed by Ray Walters (Joe Absolom) under the orders of Celia Daniels (Jaye Griffiths), the lynch pin of a sprawling human trafficking, modern slavery, prostitution and drug dealing organisation that soon ensnared various village residents, as Ray and Celia began to poison the lives of everybody the came into contact with.
Real life has been full of joy rather than tragedy for Fred, though.
‘I am still buzzing. It feels surreal and I can’t believe that less than a year ago I was at college. Now I am here on Emmerdale playing Dylan. It’s mad and I am loving being in the soap,’ he beamed, reflecting on his time on the show.
Fans grew to love Dylan even further. Though deeply damaged, his moral compass was iron clad and despite seeing no value in himself, he treated those he came to know with the utmost sincerity and kindness, leading to him being essentially adopted by Paddy Kirk (Dominic Brunt) and Mandy Dingle (Lisa Riley).
‘[Lisa] is such a motherly person, she is very caring and always there for me. Dom Brunt is also good fun to work with. We get on really well,’ said Fred of his co-stars.
Going on to praise Mark Charnock, Fred said: ‘[he] was such a mentor to me at the start. He gave me lots of positive advice and he’s been a very good role model.’
On his role, Fred said: ‘I am very grateful. Dylan is weird, he doesn’t have much confidence and he is trying his best to forget about his past life on his streets.
‘It’s been great to work alongside Amelia who plays April too. She is like a sister to me.’
Fred spoke about discovering his love for acting at school, with an experience at the Royal Shakespeare Company solidifying his ambition: ‘We went on a coach with school. I’d already started doing a few odd school plays and I loved it.
‘I realised there and then after doing the youth course, I wanted to be an actor. Acting was a new channel for me and it was a way of expressing myself too. I realised I liked portraying different characters and how other people think.’
School wasn’t always easy, though, as Fred also opened up about his struggle with dyslexia, and how he’s adapted to learning his lines from a script: ‘I read the scripts as if someone is saying it. In doing so, I have found scripts so much easier.’
Fred was diagnosed with the learning difficulty at the tender age of 9, amid struggles in school.
‘Nothing gelled for me, I liked reading but I was terrible at it,’ he reflected.
‘I had to read everything five times and go very slowly. I still do. School wasn’t for me and I couldn’t handle the environment. Now in hindsight, I probably came across as disrespectful in class.’
Fred’s mum, suspecting dyslexia, pushed hard for a test. ‘I was in year five at primary school and my mum kept asking the teachers if I could take a test. Thankfully, we managed to get one and it came back that I was. But it was still hard at school and I didn’t try.’
From there, Fred won a place on the extended diploma course in drama at Wakefield’s Capa College and went on the land a part in Netflix’s mammoth hit Adolescence: ‘I did some voiceovers to match what the extras were saying. ‘It was so cool and at the time, I didn’t know how massive it was going to be. Owen [Cooper] is a brilliant actor.’
With the modern slavery now at an end, Fred teased that the after-effects will linger on for Dylan: ‘[He] feels all over the place now.
‘He wanted everyone to be found not guilty and the last person he thought would be sent down was Paddy. Bear was the one who did it but it was Dylan’s choice to say: ‘no we can’t go to the police’.
‘He now feels so guilty that Paddy got found guilty.’
As for how he feels? ‘I love it at Emmerdale and I am just going with the flow.
‘I’m not sure what is going to happen next with Dylan but hopefully it’s a new chapter now he has been found not guilty. I’d like to see him and April stay together too.’
After all they’ve been through? So do we!
