Wiggles not second bananas to anyone

The Wiggles, Australia’s favorite preschool group, soon will be going bananas in John Paul Jones Arena.

The four-man group — along with a supporting cast of more than 10 people — will be singing and dancing at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday, when their “Go Bananas Live” tour comes to Charlottesville.

The members — Sam Moran, Anthony Fields, Murray Cook and Jeff Fatt – will perform some of their best-loved songs, like “Toot Toot Chugga Chugga Big Red Car” and “Fruit Salad,” along with newer songs like “Monkey Man” and “Old Dan Tucker.”

Paul “Paddy” Paddick — better known to children as the fifth Wiggle, Captain Feathersword — said the group and supporting cast members work hard to provide a good time for both children and parents.

“There are a lot of things [we do] that children on their level find funny that parents understand and find funny on an adult level,” Paddick said. “We’ve tried to move away from some songs, but there are some songs that the audience always wants to hear.”

This year’s show is filled with various stunts and acrobatics in preparation for a circus-like show the group will begin in December in its native Australia, Paddick said. The group will bring that show to Europe and the United States next year.

“It’s surprising, but we’re actually in better shape today [physically] than we were 16 years ago,” Paddick said.

The Wiggles formed in the early 1990s when Fields, Cook and former member Greg Page started writing children’s songs for a college class on

early childhood education. They asked for help from Fatt, who had played with Cook in the 1980s Australian rock band the Cockroaches.

Illness forced Page to leave the group several years ago, and Moran took his place as the Yellow Wiggle. Each Wiggle is known for a special “talent”: Moran for singing, Fields for eating, Cook for playing his guitar and Fatt for sleeping.

The Wiggles are the top-earning entertainers in Australia, beating out Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman and country music singer Keith Urban. Last year, the group played to an estimated 100,000 families in the United States and Canada.

“[The Wiggles] talk to children in a way that is on their level,” Paddick said.

Paddick, a trained opera singer and actor, joined the Wiggles 16 years ago after agreeing to step in for an ailing Anthony “Blue Wiggle” Field. Early in their careers, each of the Wiggles members also played the supporting cast of Captain Feathersword, Dorothy the Dinosaur, Wags the Dog and Henry the Octopus.

Paddick said he thought he would be an opera singer — and not a supporting cast member to the children’s version of the Beatles.

“I was the first full-time cast member [other than the Wiggles themselves],” Paddick said. “They would sing and the run off for a quick costume change and come back on stage.”

In 2008, the Wiggles were named Goodwill Ambassadors for UNICEF, and as part of the charity work they collect books at each of their shows.

Parents attending the Wiggles show in Charlottesville can bring a children’s book, and it will be donated to the Reach Out and Read Program of Virginia. This program annually provides 175,000 books to children around the state.

Pediatricians distribute ROR books to low-income children ages 5 months to 5 years old in an effort to encourage of love of reading, said Susan Rockwell, executive director for ROR Virginia.

“ROR enhances a child’s life with a book at the earliest age,” Rockwell said. “In the short term, it improves language and written skills and in the long term are precursors to school success and encourages a lifelong love of books and reading.”

details

The Wiggles

6:30 p.m. Wednesday

John Paul Jones Arena

$34.50 to $17.50

http://www.johnpauljonesarena.com

1-888-JPJ-TIXS