The Scottish family connection behind the global success of Australian children's music group The Wiggles

Anthony Field seems very comfortable on the stage of the SEC Armadillo in Glasgow, demonstrating his skills with the bagpipes for our kids moments before starting the first of three sold out shows. A founder of The Wiggles, he has been part of shaping a global entertainment phenomenon, creating one of the most famous children’s entertainment groups in the world.

Billions of views on YouTube, 30 million albums sold, broadcast in over 100 countries. An international symbol of Australia, the group have written their own music while also dipping into Scottish and Irish folk tunes and nursery rhymes. A family connection to Edinburgh underpins their enduring success.

The Wiggles were formed in 1991 in Sydney by four early-childhood education students - Anthony Field, Murray Cook, Greg Page, and Jeff Fatt. Their idea was simple but effective: combine catchy music with educational themes tailored for young children. Their debut album laid the groundwork, but things really took off in the late 1990s with TV shows and videos featuring bright outfits, simple choreography, and recurring characters.

By the 2000s, they had reached an audience beyond Australia, touring the UK and the US with sold-out shows and becoming a fixture on children’s television. In 2012, the original lineup retired, except Anthony Field, and a new generation of Wiggles joined to continue performing.

In the last ten years the group’s appeal has been transformed by music streaming and a rapidly expanding presence on platforms like YouTube, providing entertainment to children and kids around the world. Robert De Niro is a fan, taking his two year old daughter to meet the group backstage at a New York concert last year.

Anthony continues to be an enthusiastic presence driving The Wiggles onwards. His family are a part of the tour and the wider project - his daughter Lucia Field joined the group as a Blue Wiggle in 2022, his son Antonio is playing drums in the show. Nephew Dom is the headline act of the current tour as The Tree of Wisdom, a character that has captured the imagination of young kids and parents. There’s a forest of tree fans in the audience at the Glasgow show. Another nephew, Luke, is the tour manager while nephew Seamus plays piano on stage.

Our eldest presents a Scottish saltire flag to Anthony, which he gleefully adds to the stage. For the last decade or so The Wiggles have been consistently dipping into the collective back catalogue of Irish and Scottish songs, producing videos and interpretations of old tunes while Anthony often plays the bagpipes as part of television programmes. Kilts feature regularly.

After a barnstorming, high-energy performance, I ask about the connection to Scotland: “My grandfather, Donald Richie, his father was born in Edinburgh and he came out as a ships captain and my grandfather used to play the tenor banjo” Anthony explains.

On stage with my family and The Wiggles in Glasgow, Anthony Field with his Scotland flag. | Paul Trainer

“My second name's Donald, named after my grandfather. So I heard all the Scottish tunes. My mum's Marie. We always sing Marie's wedding for mum. So I grew up with all the beautiful Scottish tunes. My grandfather played them on the banjo. And when I joined the army in Australia, they were linked to the Gordon Highlanders, our battalion. And I learned the bagpipes and I learned all the tunes, but we had a Scottish pipe major who was absolutely fantastic. And I learned all the traditions.

“Every Friday that we'd pipe in the haggis and we’d have that. We learned all the tunes and the songs. And he used to say to me, Private Field, there's only two type of people, Scottish and those that wish they were. And I guess I was one that wished they were.”

Dom Field, who has transformed the appeal of The Wiggles, particularly on TikTok, through his frenetic dancing and funny sketches as The Tree of Wisdom, performing to Irish tune The Rattlin’ Bog, echoes his uncle’s enthusiasm for traditional music: “All the family traditions and music that's been passed down through Anthony's generation has then followed onto me and my siblings and cousins as well. So we've grown up around those beautiful Scottish tunes our whole life. And then of course, through The Wiggles, I've been dancing to Irish and Scottish songs. And it's been so much fun, that Celtic rhythm that goes through everyone around here, it's been adopted by us. It's so good.”

Anthony Field and his family. | Getty Images for SXSW Sydney

This tour has seen Tree of Wisdom fever hit the UK: “Usually when you get cast as the tree in a show, it means you're at the back with no lines, but this is the opposite. It's been so fun. We did all around Australia and now all around the UK. It's been great. And the Scottish people have just reacted.”

Lachlan Gillespie, who has been the Purple Wiggle since 2012, sang Caledonia on stage in Edinburgh and Loch Lomond for the Glasgow audience. As a singer with the group he’s brought Scottish songs and culture to an international audience.

He described singing to the Scottish crowd as emotional: “I had to stop myself just to get through the song, you see how much it means to people, the genuine clap we got after singing a song that they love so much. And for me, that music just sits in my body. I don't know exactly where my heritage down the line was from, but the Scottish music, I just have connected with.”

Anthony says his family are also fans of Scottish children’s show Balamory, which explains why Miss Hoolie actress Julie Wilson Nimmo is here with husband Greg Hemphill of Still Game fame: “I love Balamory because that was just really honest and beautiful. What a show and it's coming back. My daughter Lucia was beside herself that she's going to meet Miss Hoolie her childhood idol. It's like a dream come true for all of us.

“Julie's such a great friend and Greg who wrote Still Game, we've been mates for a long time now and he laughs at the Australian expressions and I laugh at all the Scottish ones.”