Bob may look like a flashback to any number of failed American entertainers who trooped over in the 1960s and 70s to host game shows and variety specials, but he's really just a star vehicle for Mark Trevorrow to lampoon some truly awful singers and their songs from the past and to deliver a quiet caning to some equally inane issues in the present.

In his own inimitable style - a sort of laid-back, hypnotic mix of Don Lane, Jimmy Hannan and Barry Manilow - Bob provides some easy, gentle laughs that would make any audience feel secure and superior at the expense of some pretty broad musical targets.

But it's not just the repertoire of loony tunes like I Say: Yeah, Pina Caladas and I Will Survive - it's the whole daytime regional television ambience of the show that has the audience eating out of the palms of both Bob's hands.

Bob really knows how to sell a song, especially with the ample backing of a synthesised orchestra cued up under the keyboard of musical director Michael Westlake.

Bob can slur lyrics with the best of those smarmy club-land charmers and his kind of choreography hasn't been seen since Barry Crocker was in flares and platform shoes.

This man has more charisma than a boxed set of K-Tel compilation hits. And like the shark bite that he sings about in Mack the Knife, Bob's teeth are are very prominent and all capped pearly white.

When this man unleashes his smile on the fans in the front row, they just melt.

Of course, such acclaim does lead him into some difficult comic terrain where he has to break confidences and talk about things like the Hogan wedding, where he volunteered to hand out cheese and crackers, and the Venice fiasco, not to mention his romantic encounters with the Doug Anthony All Stars.

Mark Trevorrow has fun with Bob Downe. Underneath that beige masquerade and the careful lacquered coiffure, Trevorrow conducts a gleefully savage assault on the cultural cringe in a nostalgic style that almost celebrates its lower depths. It's fun.
Bob Evans

As a near neighbour of fellow media star Paul Hogan (though, to be fair, Hogan has yet to prove himself on morning TV) Downe was naturally invited to last Saturday's Wedding of the Weekend. He declined the offer.

"I was horrified," Downe says. "They wanted me to do the catering, standing around holding a tray of crackers with deli dips. I offered to help park the cars but I believe Don Lane was doing that job."

Many in the area were surprised that Paul and Linda didn't perform their nuptials live in the studio of Good Morning Murwillumbah, Bob Downe's huge-rating TV show on the North Coast.

"We very much wanted a studio wedding but it was not to be," Downe says with some regret. "We promised Paul and Linda there would be no embarrassing cutaways, mainly because the Good Morning Murwillumbah studio only has the one camera."

Though Bob Downe's personality is a natural shade of beige, it has lately been tinged with a revolting hue of green.

"I always have been very, very concerned about the environment," Bob explains with some pride. "My personal commitment is to the preservation of vinyl. Right now I'm trying to get polyesters to breed in a back corner of the Now Or Never Caravan Park." With some success, he adds.

We should soon see Downe up on the environmental soapbox with all the other media stars.

"Peter Garrett and I are old friends. He borrows my hair to go to the Antarctic. Sting, Peter Garrett and I are the three Supremes of the environmental movement. And guess which one is Diana Ross?"

Watchers of recent Bob Downe shows may have noticed a sexual energy oozing out of the purple velvet tux. A female in the front row is no longer safe when Bob Downe struts on stage.

"My sexuality is boiling over at the surface," agrees Downe, "and I blame this entirely on touring with the Doug Anthony Allstars. I told mum I was worried that they were having a bad influence on me. She suggested aversion therapy but I tend to think that working with the DAAS is aversion therapy in itself."

Bob Downe, recently voted best-dressed man in Mullumbimby, expects to show off some exciting new fashions at Belvoir Street.

"There will be megoir costume changes," he warns, "at every opportunity, which isn't very often when you're doing a one-man show. The audience will be on the edge of their seats wondering, 'How will Bob change his clothes'?"

Clothes apart, Downe refuses to discuss the content of the show.

"I won't talk about my new material, only for the simple fact that there isn't any. In fact I suggested to Belvoir Street that we put on the poster: 'The same old crap just strung together', but they didn't seem to go for it.

This new show coincides with a major resurgence of Bob Downe as a night-time television star. As well as his Big Gig performances, Downe will now be a regular guest on Tonight Live With Steve Vizard.

Is TV ready for Bob Downe?

"Look, if Barry Crocker can appear on The Big Gig, then the rules have been rewritten," he admits. Though usually in bed well before Steve Vizard appears, Downe says he has been trying to watch the show.

"I have to keep up to see which of my tunes Ignatius Jones has 'stolen'," he says, "and I was inspired by seeing Don Lane on the show the other week. He looked so - how can I put it? - so rested."

And is that how Bob Downe wants to be?

"Absolutely."

All Bob Downe: A Man and His Muzak opens tonight at the Belvoir Street Theatre (upstairs) then on May 12, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. For bookings call 6993257 or Ticketek.
James Cockington