A healthy obsession
WITH his attraction to the simple things in life, from a nice meat pie to the jam sponge pudding that follows it, it would be easy to think that Sheffield's most famous middle-aged singer/songwriter John Shuttleworth isn't one for keeping up with the times.But the man who knows him best, Graham Fellows, says Shuttleworth's always had his finger on the pulse: "I . . . sorry, that should be he, has done shows about environmental disaster, in One Foot In The Gravy, and the necessity these days for home security, in Pillock Of The Community, where the stage was all wired up with security cameras."
This year, Shuttleworth's preoccupation is food and like that well-meaning but somewhat potty-mouthed Jamie Oliver, he's become obsessed by the nation's eating habits. Though, as Fellows wryly points out, as with any Shuttleworth show it doesn't always stay on the nutrition track. "With John, he just needs a premise, however flimsy . . . " he laughs.
This show wasn't much of a stretch for Shuttleworth to create as he's partial to a square meal himself, his wife Mary is a former dinner lady and most of his back catalogue of songs have featured food. "I realised at least half the songs he's written are about food, or have food references, Mutiny Over The Bounty, Dandelion And Burdock, Mary Had a Little Lamb, Biscuits and Confectionery . . . "
Another song, Heartbreak And Heartburn, sees a reluctant change of style for Shuttleworth. "John makes a big thing of not liking the blues idiom," says Fellows, then launches into an uncanny impression of Shuttleworth.
Sleazy
"I don't like blues, it's sleazy. You imagine somebody with a gold tooth in a smoky cellar. Awful! I wanted the song to be country and western because I like that mode of music. I feel safe with it but I hit number 28 on the organ by accident, which is blues, but it seemed to work."
In fact with so many songs, old and new, to perform, Fellows has decided that it's about time Shuttleworth released a record, and food seemed an obvious theme for that too.
"The great thing about the new John Shuttleworth show is it's got tons of new songs, and in recognition of this we are releasing an EP," announces Fellows proudly, almost as if he'd written them himself.
"I Can't Go Back To Savoury Now (about Shuttleworth being offered more shepherd's pie when he'd already started on the sweet course) is the main track and the rest are Two Margarines, about the horror of having two margarines open at once, and then two new ones, one called Tummy Trouble, about digestive problems and how to avoid them, and one called Serial Cereal Eater, which is on the perils of eating too much cereal.
"John's looking forward to being chart-bound and dancing with Legs And Co," says Fellows. No one has the heart to tell him, however, that Legs And Co drew their pensions years ago and Top Of The Pops was recently euthanized.
Domination
Not content with dominating the pop charts, Shuttleworth is also planning another feature film, a follow-up to last year's It's Nice Up North, where Shuttleworth set off to Shetland in his Austin Ambassador with photographer Martin Parr to see if people really were nicer the further north you travelled.
This time the film, provisionally entitled Southern Softies, takes a different tack.
Fellows says: "He's not testing to see if people are nasty in the south, because he knows that there are nice southerners because Ted the man in the gift shop in Shetland was from Devon and he was really nice, so the emphasis is to see whether people are really soft in the south as he suspects they are. For instance, strongman Geoff Capes hails from the north, so he'll be going down south to see if all the warm weather makes southerners soft."
But before pop stardom and next year's Palme D'Or beckon, there's a tour to deliver, so Fellows heads off to chivvy Shuttleworth on to the next venue. Be warned that any suggestions of resemblances between Fellows and Shuttleworth will be met with a disgruntled `ooff' and a mild tutting.
John Shuttleworth's With My Condiments will be at The Dancehouse on Saturday, June 16. His EP will be available to download on June 11 from shuttleworths.co.uk and the DVD of 'It's Nice Up North' is out now.
What do you think? Have your say.
Published: Fri, 25 May, 2007
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