By Eimear Phelan
The newest face of the Voice of Ireland announced DCU student David Atkinson as its new Backstage reporter.
The 20 year old Wexford Native has snagged the ‘break of a lifetime’ when he fought off 500 other applicants for the position.
Atkinson’s online entry for the job was a video monologue to the camera, which was filmed in his bedroom, hungover with 2 hours to deadline he says. It is equal parts funny and endearing as well as showcasing the 20 year olds performance skills.
The role means Atkinson now spends his days rubbing shoulders with the likes of Bressie and Dolores on the set of the Voice and he says he is really looking forward to working to with them both ‘I really like Bressie’s style, its very straight to the point and sound’.
The search for the V-reporter was narrowed down from thousands to 500 and then to just 5 contestants. All were asked to come into Donnybrook studios for their final audition and got to meet a lot of the big RTÉ names, ‘It was a very honoring, humbling experience.’ He talked of how they were all ‘ladies and gents’ and all got of selfies and hugs with Ryan Tubridy and Colm Hayes.
The Wexford man described the auditions with the five finalists as ‘highly pressurised’ but as the day wore on Atkinson said they all realised how good everyone else was and became mates. One of the others even tweeted him after the announcement to congratulate him on getting the job.
All 5 contestants used twitter during the selection process with Atkinson setting up the hashtag #DavidCantSing which was tweeted by all his friends on the day and ended up trending in Dublin for a while.
The V-Reporter job involves working backstage in the ‘Muller corner’ interacting with the Voice community, tweeting, talking to everyone backstage and maybe even making some videos. ‘They put a lot of trust in me.’ With his first day last saturday Atkinson told the college View he is looking forward to finding out the nitty gritty of the job and inserting some of his own personality: ‘they gave me a lot of free reign.’
It was officially announced last week on the Colm Hayes show on 2FM that Atkinson had secured the spot. He said he did know some time beforehand but wouldn’t say when he found out. The first people to know were his ‘two mates who happened to be standing beside me’ and of course his mother.
He has made some appearances on the Voice already with his exploits making it onto YouTube
And yes ladies, he is on Tinder
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