Fellow in yellow gets Wiggles fans shirty

By JAMES GARDINER

Where is the real Yellow Wiggle? Hundreds of disappointed little fans want to know.

Greg Page, lead singer of the multi-millionaire Australian children's entertainers is absent on the group's latest New Zealand tour after hurting his knee, and some of their pre-school fans are not happy.

Page has stayed in Sydney, where he may face surgery after injuring himself on stage during the Wiggles' United States tour last month.

"It's called getting old," said the Wiggles' New Zealand agent, Victoria Carter. She said Page was in his late 30s; some of the group members were over 40.

His stand-in, Sam Moran, donned the yellow shirt. Mrs Carter said the singing duties were evenly shared and the children generally did not notice.

"It's the mothers who like Greg; the kids, they still go, 'It's the yellow Wiggle'. Sam does look a bit like Greg."

Mrs Carter denied it was false representation. The group announced the change when they got on stage and introduced Sam.

Could the Rolling Stones get away with selling tickets and then telling the audience on the night that Mick Jagger was not appearing?

Definitely not, says Consumers' Institute chief executive David Russell.

Bringing in a new lead singer without warning was treating fans with disrespect.

"They may well be breaching the Fair Trading Act. It's no excuse to put forward that the kids wouldn't notice. In fact that is almost an admission of their guilt."

One mother who took her children to the show in Auckland on Tuesday said her 3-year old was "devastated".

"Greg's his favourite," she said. "I've had the tickets for two months. He was all built up looking forward to seeing him. They could have warned us."

She did not agree it was just the parents who missed Page. "The mothers like Anthony."

Anthony Field stripped off his blue skivvy to be named Cleo Bachelor of the Year in 1997. He did not come on the Wiggles' previous New Zealand tour, and there was no stand-in.

Another mother said her daughter enjoyed the show but wanted to visit Page in hospital.

The Wiggles' manager, Paul Field (Anthony's brother), said the decision that Page could not tour was made on medical advice just before they were due to fly here. A former cricketer, Page had suffered tendinitis for the past eight years and now had cartilage damage. The alternative to a stand-in was to pull the show altogether.

Leaving the Wiggles was not an option. "He is a Wiggle."

The group performed in Auckland and Rotorua this week and are in Wellington until tomorrow.

Next week they play in Palmerston North, Dunedin and Christchurch.