Young has also undertaken numerous concert tours, and has accumulated multiple honours, including two Brit Awards from 12 nominations, and the estimated worldwide sale of over eight million albums.

[5][6][7] Young was born into an affluent, upper middle class family, whose paternal ancestry has strong ties to the British government and military services.

[19] Young appeared in several school productions and often gave speeches in assembly, despite later admitting that he never felt completely comfortable being the centre of attention.

[19] Young left school with ten GCSEs,[20] but achieved disappointing A-Level results and had to enrol in d'Overbroeck's College, Oxford, to re-sit his exams.

He took a part-time job as a waiter at the Grand Café in Oxford, and became interested in environmental issues and local campaigning, joining a group called the Eco Society.

[25] His interest in performing arts continued, and he joined a theatre group called Footlights where he eventually landed the lead role of Curly in their production of Oklahoma!

[29] In 1999 during his second year at university, Young watched an episode of This Morning and learned that the show was holding a competition to find members for a new boy band.

On 29 May 1999, Young appeared on the programme and performed a short rendition of the Jackson 5 song, "I'll Be There",[31] in front of a panel of judges that included Simon Cowell, an artists and repertoire executive at BMG,[32] and Kate Thornton, a former editor of Smash Hits, turned television presenter.

They were Lee Ryan who later joined the boy band Blue, Declan Bennett who joined the boy band Point Break, signed to Danielle Barnett, the current lead singer of Urban Cookie Collective and Music Manager who contacted him directly following the This Morning audition, and Andy Scott-Lee who went on to compete in the second series of Pop Idol.

Fox described him as cheesy, Waterman was unimpressed by his stage presence and image – Young was wearing baggy and faded jeans, scuffed shoes and his grandfather's jumper which was stained with egg yolk – but conceded that his voice was "nice".

[45] The following week, auditions were held at the Criterion Theatre, and Young sang "All or Nothing" by O-Town, the Drifters' "Up on the Roof" and "Fast Love" by George Michael.

Each show featured ten of the fifty competitors singing one song in the Pop Idol studios in front of the judges and an audience, but unlike previous rounds, the viewing public decided who would advance to the next round by interactive televoting voting using their telephones, the Red Button on digital television remote controls, and the Pop Idol website.

[49] Judges Chapman, Fox and Waterman were all enthusiastic about his performance, but Cowell was unimpressed and called it "distinctly average", adding, "I just thought it was totally normal.

[59] Young easily progressed through each subsequent round by performing jazz, lounge and soul versions of songs such as "Wives and Lovers",[60] "Ain't No Sunshine"[61] and "Beyond the Sea".

In election-style campaigns, they made numerous radio and television appearances, were interviewed in magazines, national and local newspapers, and met and performed for their fans.

[65][66] Celebrities such as Noel Gallagher, Robbie Williams, Posh and Becks, Kylie Minogue, Myleene Klass, Michelle Collins, S Club 7 and Jenny Frost announced their support for Young, while Gates was backed by Duncan James, Natasha Hamilton, Richard and Judy, Westlife, Faye Tozer, Denise Van Outen, Ben Adams, Neil Tennant, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Claire Richards, Boy George, Ricky Gervais and Francis Rossi.

[66][67][68][69] The media pitted Young and Gates against each other, publishing false news articles claiming that the two contestants were bitter rivals and their parents were bickering and fighting backstage, stories which both camps denied.

In October 2002, Young released his debut album, From Now On, which included "Evergreen", nominated in the Best British Single category at the Brit Awards 2003, and "Anything Is Possible".

The official merchandise range for the tour, highlighted by the press, included a "tip and strip" pen which, when turned over, reveals Young in his underpants.

[113] The final single from 85% Proof was "What the World Needs Now", written by Burt Bacharach, which he released towards the end of 2015 as part of WWF's campaign to raise awareness for declining wildlife populations across the globe.

[134] Young added acting to his repertoire when he accepted a role in the BBC film Mrs Henderson Presents, starring Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins, in which he played Bertie.

[138][139] In 2011, he starred in a new drama series on Sky Living called Bedlam, about supernatural happenings taking place at a disused asylum being converted into loft-style apartments.

In November 2004, Young presented a documentary entitled Runaways[141] as part of the Children in Need campaign, highlighting the problems facing distressed teens who run away from home, and the plight they were in being picked up off the streets and railway stations by pimps who offered them work and drugs.

In March 2009, ITV1 arts programme, The South Bank Show presented an hour long fly on the wall documentary about Young that they had been filming over the course of the year as he returned to promote the Let It Go album.

It showed him in Iceland filming the video for the "Let It Go" single, backstage before his performance on The X Factor and on his UK theatre tour from November 2008 among other segments.

[146] Young supports the charity Women's Aid, about which he wrote, "I am proud to put my name beside this cause, and hope that I might be able to help more people affected by the terrors of domestic violence, as well as help to create a wider awareness within our society.

He also supports The Children's Society Safe and Sound Campaign, and Positive Action Southwest (PASW), for which he performed at his first solo concert, in July 2003, at Killerton House, Exeter.

Young is the ambassador for Mood Foundation, a charity which aims to build a database of private therapists and alternative therapies to treat various types of depressive conditions.

In it, he writes of the Chris Moyles "rampage of homophobia" in 2009, live on BBC Radio 1, which left Young "aghast" and unable to speak out against it at the time.

The Laurence Olivier Award is presented annually by the Society of London Theatre (SLT) to recognize excellence in professional theater.