Fascinating Aida are on the road with their 40th Anniversary Show

It’s a chance to look back over four decades on the road for Dillie Keane who founded the group in 1983 and was joined by key writing partner Adèle Anderson in 1984 and by soprano Liza Pulman in 2006.

“I started it several centuries ago,” says Dillie. “I think George III was on the throne but yes it does seem like about 40 years. It seems a lot longer than that in some ways but then sometimes it doesn't. But I think if you had asked me 20 years ago or even 35 years ago would we still be going I would have said absolutely not, but actually in the last 20 years it has become plain that we have some stability and I think that's because we have got Liza in the group. And she loves the job! She doesn't have a Broadway career that we are stopping, and she has fun doing it. She grew up in the theatre. I think she was born in a trunk! Her father was a writer so she's certainly got that background. She's got an opera background too and she fell into theatre which was lovely but didn't completely float her boat and she just accidentally fell into this and we're not letting her go!”

Looking back at the start of it all, Dillie recalls: “I don't think I had anything as firm as an intention when I started. I remember being interviewed when we had first had some success and they asked what our ambition was and whether it was to play the Royal Albert Hall. And I just said my ambition is to have my own washing machine. I was going down to the launderette and it was very inconvenient! But he said ‘What about the Royal Albert Hall?’ and I just said ‘The Royal Albert Hall is a dream, not an ambition!’”

Inevitably things have changed a little over the years: “When we first started we just threw everything into the pot. It was perhaps a much more varied show in the sense that we did ballads. We don't want to do ballads anymore, though. Who wants to listen to women of my age singing ballads and singing about lost love. You certainly don't want anything like that!”

As for the continuing celebrations: “We will be working until Easter and then we get a welcome break. We have said no to everything except going to Australia in June to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival and then we come back and then I might be doing some work with other people. We need a break from Fascinating Aida. We all do. We need the break to have a life so that we can write the new material. We just need to breathe and look and see what's happening and what is in the ether and what people are talking about. And then later in the year we're going to do a lovely cruise on the Rhine. We're singing for Rhine people. It's a lovely little company and it's very cosy. There's a two-storey riverboat and it's run by the nicest company in the world. We did Amsterdam with them and it was great. I've never fancied the huge cruisers, the vast liners but I really fancy doing this.”