Variety Show With Scottish Flavour

Press, Volume C, Issue 29497, 26 April 1961, Page 11

Variety Show With Scottish Flavour

A variety show with a distinct Scottish flavour and including two of the bestknown Scottish performers, Jimmy Shand and the tenor. Kenneth McKellar. will be presented in the Majestic theatre for three nights from May 1. Kenneth McKellar is a Scot by birth. He completed a science degree at Aberdeen University intending to work in forestry but won a singing scholarship which took him to the Royal College of Music in London.

He later toured as principal tenor with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. He has made several tours of the United States and Canada. On radio and television he is very well-known in Britain. He sings lieder, opera, oratorio, Scottish and popular songs. He has .made many recordings. His main interest is in Scottish songs. Jimmy Shand will be known to practically every New Zealander through his recordings of Scottish coun-

try airs. He plays an accordion at which he has achieved immense popularity. His present instrument was made to his own specifications. It has 40 treble keys and 105 bass. He is a self-taught musician. He began work early in life as a pit boy in a coal mine in his native Fifeshire but became unemployed at the time of the depression. He later worked in Dundee for a music firm and bought an accordion. In 1933 he turned professional. He created his Scottish Country Dance Band in 1945 and has made more than 100 recordings. Alec Finlay, another performer in the group, is bestknown for his portrayals of Scottish characters. He works largely in music halls but also on radio and television. He appeared in the first Royal Variety Show in Scotland in 1958. Mr Finlay has completed six coast to coast tours of Canada and the United States and toured in South Africa. Asia and the Philippines. The highland dancer. Bobby Watson, also touring with the show, became the juvenile world champion highland dancer when he was 11. He now runs his own school of highland dancing in Aberdeen. Like the others in the show, Mr Watson has appeared on British television. He has toured in Europe and America.