Musical favourite The Singing Kettle is almost as much a part of a Scottish Christmas as tinsel and turkey.
Folk music duo Cilla Fisher and Artie Trezise started the popular comedy singalong show in 1982, and apart from a spell in abeyance after Cilla called time on her stint in the group in 2015, it’s been going ever since.
Nowadays known as Artie’s Singing Kettle, a one-man version of the timeless hit first came to the boil in 2018 and its Fife-raised creator is back out on the road with his new Christmas production.
Following six recent sold-out parties in the north-east, the prospects for big turnouts at upcoming gigs in Anstruther (Saturday), Forfar (Sunday) and Dunfermline (December 31) certainly look good.
“The first two shows always involve feeling your way as to how it all fits together after all the rehearsing,” says ex-teacher Artie, 76.
“It’s exciting to go cold turkey, as it were, in front of audiences and thankfully all the predictions have worked out. I’m doing a song from a couple of the very early Singing Kettle shows, and festive classics like Jingle Bells and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, along with some of our own best-loved material.
“If it was all just Christmas from start to finish I think you’d lose the attention of the audience, so you’ve got to mix and match it and the setlist is working superbly.”
Kids ‘want to dance’ and ‘let off steam’
Artie, who also works part-time at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery, says he tries to get his young fans involved in every song. “It’s not necessarily singalong, it might be a response or doing actions,” he explains.
“If I was to start again now it would be the Singing Kettle Song and Dance Show, or the Singing and Dancing Kettle, because so many kids want to move nowadays.
“They want to dance as well as sing, so I’ve put in a couple of moments where they can just let off steam. If they’ve done that it’s easier to bring them back and settle them down again.
“Maybe it’s the old school teacher in me but they don’t get too carried away. If you make them dance they’re quite keen to take a seat again.”
At the height of their fame in the ’90s, Cilla and Artie were regularly touring the UK and made a string of Kettle-themed TV series.
The pair had originally emerged as a talented and acclaimed folk duo in the ’70s but, as Artie explains, it was a spur of the moment decision that led to a change of tack.
“We were touring in America a lot and knew that most of the profits were taken up through travel and accommodation so the only thing left was album sales,” he says.
“We sold a couple of albums we had out hand over fist, and there was a kind of fashion in America for folky people to have kids’ albums so we did one of primarily Scottish songs and it did well over there.
“At the same time, it outsold everything we’d ever done here within weeks. People asked us to do shows for kids but we didn’t because we were serious folky people – but when we did a couple they went really well.
“As soon as we had a second child, travelling round wasn’t quite so easy but doing those kinds of gigs meant we could get home again afterwards.”
The Singing Kettle could have been ‘Kippers and Custard’
Artie tells me the names Hopscotch and Kippers And Custard were also considered for the musical comedy, but that they eventually went with The Singing Kettle in tribute to their home village, Kingskettle in Fife.
He says he still gets joy from seeing youngsters picking up on his famous clues inside the kettle, and as well as his Christmas gigs, he’s been busy preparing his first-ever Hogmanay-themed show, which is at Dunfermline’s Alhambra Theatre.
Based in recent years near Cilla’s childhood home in Glasgow’s West End, the pair still enjoy returning to Fife, where their daughter Jane lives.
“Our initial mission statement was really informal – just to share the joy of singing and to get kids and families singing together, and that’s still pretty much at the core of it all,” Artie adds.
Tickets for Artie’s upcoming shows are available via his Singing Kettle website.
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