Three new Wiggles are part of children's group tour

Three new performers - including a female! - arrive on popular children's group's tour

SHANE MURPHY
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The Wiggles, Emma (yellow), "Lachy" (Purple), Dorothy (dinosaur), Simon (red) and Anthony (blue), will be at the Cape Cod Melody Tent Wednesday Aug. 21.

The Wiggles have taken off through North America — including a stop Wednesday at Cape Cod Melody Tent — with Dorothy, Wags, Henry and yes, the big red car.

The group, however, will be touring in a big red tour bus for safety purposes since "Americans drive on the wrong side of the road," a fact that Emma Watkins, the yellow Wiggle, points out in a phone interview. The tour is to promote the Wiggles new album "Taking Off" across the United States and Canada, and will introduce audiences there to the new faces donning the familiar skivvies.

In 2012, after 21 years together, three of the four founding members of the popular children's group announced their plans to hand over the skivvies to a new generation of Wiggles. With that decision came the induction of the first female Wiggle, Watkins (yellow), along with Lachlan "Lachy" Gillespie (purple) and Simon Pryce (red). Blue Wiggle and founding member Anthony Fields stayed with the group.

The new crew spent eight months with the original guys rehearsing and learning the ropes before the colored shirts were officially handed down. But Lachy, Emma and Simon were no strangers to the Wiggles stage as all three have each been with the organization for years.

Excluding her appearance on a Wiggles VHS tape dancing with her sister when she was about 6 years old, Emma has been with the group for three years. She has appeared on stage as Fairy Larissa, Dorothy the Dinosaur, a Wiggly dancer and Wags the Dog, a character, she admits, that masked her clumsiness as stage humor. Now, Watkins has been given the honor of being driver of the big red car.

Simon Pryce is a Wiggles veteran who has been with the group for more than a decade. Pryce has lent his voice to many Wiggles videos including, "The Wiggles Go Bananas," "Wiggle Bay" and "Cold Spaghetti," as well as playing Ringo the ringmaster and King John in the Wiggles-created TV program, "The Kingdom of Paramithi."

Lachy has been with the Wiggles since 2009, appearing as Wags and a Wiggly dancer. He has also toured as the swashbuckling Captain Feathersword in "Dorothy the Dinosaur's Traveling Show." He has since adopted the full responsibilities and familiar gags that come with wearing the purple shirt, including nodding off mid-song and being jostled awake by cries of "Wake up Lachy!"

These are the new Wiggles. "It's not 'wake up Jeff' anymore, now it's 'wake up Lachy,'" Watkins explains. Even though there may be three new faces, the response has been positive thus far. "The children are dancing from the first minute," she says. Watkins explains that to some of the younger audience members, these are the only Wiggles they have ever known, and as she speaks about her "mini-Emma Army" that fact becomes apparent.

The 23-year-old Wiggle has a loyal legion of little people, who suit up in their black skirts and yellow shirts, with their hair decorated with yellow bows, which she says can often be bigger than their heads. The mini-Emmas involve boys and girls alike; the Wiggles aim to be as inclusive as possible.

The group was started while Fields was studying to be a pre-school teacher at Australia's Macquarie University and learning about childhood psychology, child development and how children think. The group began to form there with other founding members Greg Page (yellow) and Murray Cook (red). "At university, there were maybe four or five guys and over four hundred women, which was a bit overwhelming. I think the blokes got together as a bit of a bonding thing," Field recalls on the Wiggles website.

The group began performing on the streets of Sydney, Australia, with Field's former bandmate Jeff Fatt (purple) and the Wiggles were formed. Near the end of Field's studies at Macquarie, the group recorded its first album in hopes of landing Field a teaching job, which worked. Field was working at a Sydney pre-school when the group approached Australia's national broadcaster, ABC, about the possibility of releasing the album.

After years of touring — including performing 500 shows just in 1995-96 — the band made its way to America in 2002 with a show on Playhouse Disney. The Wiggles earned the title of "the fab four of fun" along the way and became the world's most successful children's group. And with ear worms like "Do the Propeller," "Fruit Salad" and "Hot Potato," it's not hard to see why.

The group speaks the language of pre-school, such as using the inclusive "everybody" versus "boys and girls," in creating its songs. "We're always thinking about the children," Watkins says, explaining how childhood psychology continues to play into their writing. She goes on to describe how the songs still get stuck in her head "for at least two weeks" while the quartet writes and practices them.

One song, in particular, she is excited about is "I Like Goats," off of the forthcoming album "Fairy Tales," due out next year. The song is a labor of love she explains, because, well, she likes goats.

After 22 years, the group shows no signs of slowing down. With "Taking Off" out now, "Fairy Tales" due out next year and a new TV series, "Ready, Steady, Wiggle," to premiere on TV's Sprout on Monday — just two days before the Tent appearance on the world tour — donning the colored skivvies is no light undertaking. Watkins says she is up to the task.

The original Wiggles "are so iconic in Australia," she says, "I hope to keep the legend of the Wiggles going. I'm really excited to be a part of this journey."

And Watkins is excited that the journey will bring the Aussies underneath the Melody Tent in Hyannis on Wednesday morning, when kids can tango with Wags, romp-omp-a-chomp with Dorothy and Wiggle with the Wiggles. "The Melody Tent is one of our favorite venues," she says. "I feel like we're part of the circus."

Who: The Wiggles When: 11 a.m., Wednesday Where: The Cape Cod Melody Tent, 21 West Main St., Hyannis Tickets:$32.75-$52.74 for general seating; $26.75-$46.75 for club members Information and Reservations: Melodytent.org or 508-775-5630

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