KIERAN BROWN and Shona White are coming together once again, this time to celebrate Burns Night (25 January) at London’s The Other Palace with the very best of Scotland’s musical heritage and musical theatre.
Scots In the City launched at the Arts Theatre in November 2017 and now the duo has returned for round two, but this time they’re giving a special nod to the poet himself, Robert Burns.
Kieran (The Phantom of the Opera, Wicked) and Shona (Mamma Mia!, Wicked) will also be joined by some special Scottish guests.
The one-night-only event will raise money for ScotsCare and UKBorderline.
Here, Kieran is in conversation with Tal Fox.
How did the idea for the show come about?
Shona and I have been wanting to do a cabaret together for quite some time. We’ve known each other for about 18 years and we’ve done gigs together. A mutual friend of ours actually suggested we do a Scottish cabaret and I mentioned it to Shona, who had the same idea. I just immediately thought Scots in the City as a title and then we started to see what we could pull together.
What can audiences expect from the show?
It’s a real variety, a real mixture of material, but with a connection to Scotland. We’re including as much musical theatre stuff as possible (and not just Brigadoon!). A lot of suggestions on Facebook were in relation to new writing, so we’re putting a couple of new bits and pieces in too.
We’ve got a bit of The Proclaimers in there – their songs were featured in Sunshine on Leith, and you can’t possibly have a Scottish cabaret without a bit of The Proclaimers! We’ve also got a couple of songs from the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movies which were set in Scotland and we’ve got a bit of Eddi Reader.
The show is falling on Burns Night, so there’s a nod to the work of Robert Burns like ‘Ae Fond Kiss’, ‘A Red, Red Rose’ and ‘Auld Lang Syne’.
How did you choose which songs made your song list?
We struggled to begin with, but then it was like buses, nothing comes along for ten minutes and then three come along at once.
We have aimed to get a balance between ballads, up-tempo, modern and old songs. It’s all about what audiences would like to hear and what we enjoy singing. People absolutely love ‘Sunshine on Leith’, I love singing it. Some people have never heard it before, it’s just such a beautiful song and so haunting.
Are all the songs from Scotland or have you taken other numbers and put your own twist on them?
I don’t want to give too much away but Shona and I were both in Wicked so there’s a little nod to that show in there. Shona was in Chess as well so there’s a track from that show too.
What song are you most looking forward to performing?
We have a little nod to Lloyd Webber at the end of the show. It’s Lloyd Webber presented in a way that you have probably never heard before. It got a great reaction at the end of our last show. It’s a fun medley of songs sung in a way that hasn’t been done before on stage.
There’s a track that was written by Barry Anderson and Mark Petty who are great friends of mine, they wrote the song a few years back when my Nana passed away. January is the anniversary of her death and the day after the concert is the anniversary of my Papa’s death. This song was written as a little tribute to my Nana and Papa. It’s the best time for me to share that song with the audience.
Can you say who any of your special guests are?
We are just confirming another couple of guests but we’ve got actor George Rae who is off to New York a couple of days after the concert to do his one-man show about being a Scot in New York.
We’ve got Lyndsey Gardiner who I was in The Phantom of the Opera with. She was the Carlotta cover and she’s from Glasgow, so she’ll be singing a couple of songs.
There’s also composer, lyricist and songwriter Dougal Irvine who also joined us last time, so we are delighted to have him back.
We’ve got a couple of students that Shona has mentored too. Shakira Rattray and Alice Inglis are going to come and do some backing vocals for us and Shakira will bring the bagpipes!
How has it been collaborating with other Scottish performers?
It’s been great, it’s been lovely to be able to celebrate our shared heritage. We couldn’t think of any other evening that we could remember where people got together to celebrate Scottish music in London, so it’s been lovely. When we get together we all get really, really Scottish, I kind of feel sorry for all the non-Scots in the audience because our accents become thicker.
So how do you appeal to your non-Scottish audience members?
We just try to celebrate it and invite everyone to be part of it as well. I think the Scots and the Irish have this shared quality where they’re generally very friendly people, so it’s just inviting them to be part of it and take a look at Scottish music and the culture.
We do take the piss out of ourselves a bit as well, it’s not all serious, it’s quite funny. We have a photo booth set up and there’s all sorts of Scottish props. We encourage people to take photos and Tweet photos to us, so we’re just involving everyone. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then who can you laugh at? We invite people to laugh with us.
Have you taken the show to Scotland or do you have plans to?
You’d hear these songs quite a lot up in Scotland so I’m not sure if we’d take it there. We have a lot planned but we are going to concentrate on this show first. This is only the second time we’ve done it. We launched on St Andrew’s Day at Above the Arts Theatre and we sold out, which was great.
We’d love to go to Feinstein’s/54 Below in New York. I think it would go down a treat there and we’d love to take it to Vienna too.
Have you made any changes since you last performed at the Arts?
It’s going to very similar, but we have changed two or three songs. We’ve tried to make it more relevant to celebrate the work and the life of Robert Burns, as well as a celebration of Scottish musical heritage and culture.
Can you tell us a bit more about the charities you’re raising money for and why you chose them?
We’re supporting ScotsCare and UKBorderline which look after homeless and vulnerable young Scots that have fallen on hard times, particularly in London. The work they do is great all year round. It’s bad enough to fall on hard times, but to be far away from home with not even enough money to see the people who may be able to support you, is so tough. I’ve been in a position where I needed my family or friends and been in another country, it’s just the worst feeling, so anything we can do to help the charity is a bonus for us.
Tickets are available HERE.
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