Circuit Training 79: John Shuttleworth's Final Curtain?

In a few short months it'll be 30 long years since Graham Fellows first became John Shuttleworth, the aged, still-amateur singer-songwriter who inexplicably sells out sizeable venues around the country.

John is putting on a big charity gig at London's famous Palladium in late June, featuring an admirably varied array of acts, most of whom appeared on the last series of his Radio 4 show, John Shuttleworth's Lounge Music... the likes of Chas & Dave, Toyah Wilcox, Martin Ware (out of Heaven 17), and a couple of legendary puppets.

That's the good news. The less good news is that Fellows - who initially found fame in 1978 as the geek-punk sensation Jilted John - may soon be hanging up the specs, peeling off the driving gloves and putting away the organ, possibly for good. Oof!

Or perhaps that's just the rigors of touring talking, as he's currently nearing the end of one. Circuit Training catches up with Fellows in the reception of a hotel, following another triumphantly amateurish performance the previous night.

How did this Palladium show come about Graham?

Well I worked out that, at the end of June, it'll be 30 years since I did my first John Shuttleworth audio cassette, which some people might find hard to believe - I spent the first few years not doing it professionally, just making tapes.

I did do the odd gig in the late '80s - I supported Robert Plant at the Marquee club. He was doing [the song] Big Log, it was a mystery appearance and I was the support. But it was a very different act back then, I had a backing tape and I mimed on a big old Farfisa organ, I can't believe I used to carry that around with me. And I had somersaulting clockwork dogs, and robots on the top of the keyboards, [goes into John's voice] 'visual stimuli, to keep the interest up, because I'm a bit boring to look at'. So that's how it started, 30 years ago.

The show is a big birthday party then?

It's a big charity gig. My sister's got MS so we thought why don't we do a big gig at the Palladium, and we've asked some of the guests from the last series of the radio show, and the main guests have agreed. So we've got quite a line-up. And people like Sooty and Sweep. I think they're a great attraction meself.

When did you last do a Radio 4 series?

The last series, it went out in July last year, and we may put in for another one. But you know, I've being doing John for so long now, it's like finding where to go with the character really, without just repeating myself.

We are doing an animation project, that's been ongoing for a few years, it's my company and another better known one. Basically The Shuttleworths, that late night radio show, that was a 15 minute format, so we're stretching it out to a 25 minute animation with all the characters, and all the usual things, nothing really going on. It's all about the detail.

Speaking of cartoons, did you know that you're a big influence on Batman?

Am I really?

I've just read that Grant Morrison, who wrote the classic graphic novel 'Arkham Asylum', was very inspired early on by 'Jilted John'.

Ah, that's nice. I know he did have a big effect on people, it came out of nowhere that song, nestling amongst things like Father Abraham and The Smurfs, Summer Nights by Olivia Newton John and John Travolta, Brown Girl in the Ring by Boney M. So it was very different.

That's what appealed to him I think, that Jilted John wasn't your traditional pop star.

It was homemade wasn't it, homespun, and all my stuff is I suppose. That's the appeal for me, I like things that have cost nothing, that spring from grass roots and grow organically, that's exactly what happened with Jilted John and John Shuttleworth, and hopefully it'll happen with my next project, whatever that is.

I don't know how you want to term this but we do want people to come to the Palladium because it could be John's, er, last gig for a while. It's a kind of celebration of 30 years, and it'd be nice to end this block of work on a high.

I read that you were inspired to start John after being in the music industry and hearing 'turkey tapes'.

They're just bad demo tapes really - the modern equivalent would be somebody sending you an embarrassing video. My son showed me one, which is very much of that Shuttleworth ilk, called The Worst Pop Video Ever, and it's absolutely brilliant.

It's this woman in the early '90s and she's obviously paid to have a video made, and it's her own song and she's hired a motorbike and a limousine and she has to get in the back of the limo, and it's so embarrassing because the guy gets in the way and she hesitates - oh, it's so sad. She's clearly blown all her savings on making this video, but then it's kind of made her a bit of a star, she's had millions of hits.

So what I was trying to do was create that sort of naffness with Shuttleworth. With the first radio shows that's what interested me, trying to confuse people really.

You're playing my local haunt this week, the Hertford Theatre, which holds about 400, but you also have to pretend to be a hapless amateur: it's an interesting juxtaposition.

It is, isn't it, it is a problem, but I've managed to overcome it. I talk about the Palladium gig in my gigs at the moment, trying to sell it, and I say 'ooh, I'm playing the Palladium but Ken [John's neighbour and manager] has cocked up, it's in aid of charity, so I'm not going to get any petrol money' - you put a negative spin on it and I think people accept it.

At the end of the day it's a piece of theatre isn't it, people are suspending disbelief, watching this entertainer who's not terribly good, but they're thinking 'well he is good, because it's the brilliant performer Graham Fellows controlling him.' Ha!

Then again, we have played your songs to people who really didn't...

Some people just don't get it, and I don't mind that - it's quite good, it probably means that I'm still doing it realistically. I was in front of a live audience on Radio 4 recently singing a Red Nose Day song and I felt that a few people in the audience were thinking 'who is this no-hoper?' Clive Anderson set me up and paid me the compliment of not saying 'it's a joke,' but I did it again on 6Music and I think it worked better, Stuart Maconie has that slightly arch quality that shows that 'its comedy time!', which helps.

There was a great bit where you asked Maconie a question mid-song and took him completely by surprise...

Ha, I thought it was a good bit of radio that. I was in a studio in Carlisle, and I was late and hurriedly set up and the engineer buggered off, and without me knowing I was actually overloading the mic, so at the 6music end they were pulling the fader down, so it sounded quite distorted. But I like all that.

I thought you were genuinely in a lay-by somewhere.

God, it didn't sound that bad did it?! But that's the other bizarre thing, because I cock up things in gigs all the time, not deliberately, I forget songs, I forget chords, and the audience all laugh and come up afterwards: 'that was really clever the way you did that.' Yeah, er, thanks.

30 years on then, do you find yourself becoming more like your alter-ego?

Yes, and I think that's why it's getting close to the final curtain for John, because in terms of doing live tours, (a) it's really exhausting and (b), it's that weird thing that I've almost caught up with John, his age. I look at old YouTube clips of me when I was in my 30s, and you can see it's a young man dressed up, and now I inhabit the character so completely, it's almost a bit odd really.

And the third thing, I'm not as interested in John's world as I was, because I'm getting close to it, so when I was younger, 'oh isn't it hilarious laughing at this old guy who plays the keyboard badly.' Now it's a bit too close for comfort.

And also, as John says, 'I'm no spring chicken, I want to become famous' - well, I would like to do something else. I don't just want to be remembered for Jilted John and John Shuttleworth, I would like to do a Graham Fellows album, or there are a few other projects on the back burner. But John has been so all-consuming, the various strands of his character, the radio, live, the cartoon - if that took off, god, I'd be at it for the next 10 years. But we'll see.

John Shuttleworth's current show, 'A Wee Ken to Remember', is touring until March 28th. Then 'John Shuttleworth and Friends' take over the London Palladium on June 28th. Visit www.shuttleworths.co.uk for details.