? Just listen to the music’
ny, has written the only two new songs Kemps’ album, both of them inspired by rents’ love. “She’ll earn more from it we will,” grins Martin. r Capital Radio DJ son Roman, 26, is tly in Australia as a contestant on ITV’S Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! George el was godfather to both of them. never spoiled them,” says Shirlie. “We ome from working class families.we brought up being told if you want hing, go out and work for it.” grew up in Bushey, Herts, on “a little l estate where no one ever locked their doors, all our mums were friends, you connected”. ter’s son Martin is from on, North London, er close community.
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Demacque. As Pepsi & Shirlie, they had two Top 10 Hits but Shirlie says she never enjoyed fame.
“I still get the occasional, ‘Are you Pepsi?’,” she laughs. “But Martin gets recognised everywhere.”
“I’ve been doing it since I was 17,” he says. “You just learn to adjust your life so it doesn’t affect you. Otherwise, it’d drive you mad.” Playing wide-boy club owner Steve Owen in Eastenders in the 1990s took him into a different sort of fame. “I remember standing in a queue in Sainsbury’s and a woman turned around and said, ‘I knew it was you – I recognised your breathing’,” he says.
Martin’s world was turned upside down in 1995 when he was found to have two brain tumours, one the size of a grapefruit. An operation and radiotherapy saved his life. He likens the ordeal to a car crash:
“so fast, so frightening... it was a flip of a coin whether I’d make it, but I’m back to normal now.” It was a huge strain for Shirlie – “a horrendous time. Martin was under sedation and sleeping. I had two children and was going back and forth to the hospital. I was terrified. Martin looked great, my eyes were black...”
Martin says that making the album has been a tonic. “I haven’t seen Shirlie this happy for years.”
In January they’re taking their “new baby” on the road in Big Band Broadway with a 50-piece orchestra, Racheltucker from stage show Wicked and Matt Ford, “the best big band singer in Britain”.
“We’ll be hosting the whole show and doing six or seven songs, just us dipping our toes in,” says Martin.
“It’s a whole new experience,” says Shirlie. “Especially for me. It’s lovely to be involved in something so stylish. It could lead to a lot more shows.”
● In The Swing Of It (Sony) is out on Friday. Big Band Broadway dates and tickets: bigbandbroadway.co.uk