In Australia Trevorrow worked in vain to secure an entrance for the safari-suited and heavily lacquered Downe into television, large-scale theatre productions and recording. No-one was biting. Bob seemed doomed to a fate that was not even worthy of the bland TV hosts he lampooned, that of the three-minute guest spot on variety shows.

"I went to the UK out of pure frustration with the situation here," says Trevorrow, whose relationship with Bob is betrayed only by the occasional roll of the eyes and those Big, Bright Game Show teeth. "I've tried to get so many people here interested, and nobody is. So nobody was more surprised than me, when I went to Edinburgh, at how instantly the audiences and TV producers took to the character."

On his first night in Edinburgh he was placed at the Fringe Club.

"The Fringe Club has two halls - a big one and a small wine bar. In the wine bar there are 300 people jammed in, and they look down from a balcony, so they can throw things on your head. You're incredibly vulnerable. But I went on and just stormed it from the first performance."

London is Trevorrow's home now, and when he returns for his performances in Australia each year, he usually stays with friends. After the Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney seasons conclude, he's back home for another series for British television.

ITV in the UK provided Trevorrow with his first TV show, Bob Downe Under, which ran for eight weeks late last year. Downe sings a tune or two, interviews expats (such as Neighbours stars doing panto) and tosses in a few clips from The Late Show and Tonight Live.

"You don't find out until halfway through a series what you're rating,"Trevorrow says. "They don't consider the figures important until the third or fourth week. But they were happy with the ratings.

"BBC 2 was throwing up fantastic movies against me. Zelig, stuff like that. I just felt sick every time I opened the Radio Times and saw what I was up against.

"But apparently there's a whole pile of fanmail waiting for me when I get back," he says, smiling. "It's always the same stuff, little floral note paper, saying: 'I love you, Bob', 'I love your smile', 'I love your teeth', 'I want to have your beige babies'.

"They want him to be real, you know, in the way we wanted HR Puff'n'Stuff to be real."

On his return to Britain, Trevorrow will start work on a musical project. There is also another season of Bob Downe Under, perhaps with a bigger budget, a slightly less (or slightly more) tacky set and a little more on-camera work from Mr Showbiz himself.

"I feel like I've only ever scratched the surface in terms of the potential," he says.

Bob Downe plays at the Harbourside Brasserie tonight and tomorrow night, also next Friday and Saturday.Stage time 9 pm. Tickets $16. Bookings 252 3000
Peter Holmes

LIFE is slowly passing Bob Downe by. Dwarfed by his mother, paranoid about his sexuality and retarded by polyester, he is a showbiz "personality" just waiting for a spot on Channel 10.

Relaxing at home in the Murwillumbah caravan park, he hangs a safari suit on the line, straightens a garden gnome and sits down to talk.

Top priority is to challenge the rumors about his sexuality.

"Bob is the original showbiz closet case. He never has actually had sex with anyone," explains Downe.

Is he likely to?

"Oh God no. He's too scared ... look, he still lives with his mother.

Nothing will happen until his mother dies and she's like the Queen _ she could go on forever and ever. He's in a very Prince Charles situation." Any truth in the telephone rumors?

"Well that's all he's restricted to. He did have a phone conversation with Lily Savage _ she's his fiancee _ and the line was very muffled.

They were talking about bushwalking and rock-climbing and what he actually said was `I want to be your crampon'." Since his inception in 1986 Downe, or more precisely his daytime alter ego Mark Trevorrow, has dedicated himself to hobbies other than rock- climbing. Now based in London, he relishes his role as the self- proclaimed godfather of kitsch and spends his time dredging up polyester suits and 1970s muzak.

While Trevorrow spent most of '92 working the Edinburgh festival and making a comedy series for Britain's commercial television network, ITV, strains of the hits that lie so close to his heart have been popularised by another comedy act, the D-Generation. Halfway through their Saturday night show the team ran a "toilet-break" segment that resurrected yesterday's gauchest entertainers.

Unable to resist the opportunity for an industry snipe, Trevorrow accuses them of poaching: "Well, we know where they're getting all that from, don't we? I've got a long pedigree." He does, however, enjoy the D-Generation and explains the ultimate Bob Downe TV series as "one long toilet break". Such a prospect clearly fails to daunt overseas audiences as Bob's second series was confirmed this week and is presently the subject of a battle between ITV and the BBC.

Working alongside London identities could feasibly signify a change of direction for Bob Downe, a character who has long been recognised as a parody of our own schmaltzy TV personalities. But Trevorrow cannot imagine ever having to turn elsewhere for material.

"I always get an enormous sense of comfort (returning to Australia) because to me nothing changes, only the faces and names. Thats what's inspiring about Australian TV, absolutely nothing changes ...

"I'm dreaming of my own show on Channel 10, I think Bob's a very Channel 10 kind of guy. The most inspirational thing that's happened in television in the last 12 months was `Doug Mulray's Naughtiest Home Videos' (on Channel 9) being pulled mid-show. That's terribly inspiring, it could only happen in Australia. There's something terribly rinky-tink about that, it's absolutely hilarious." Unfortunately the comedian has not yet had the opportunity to catch up with `Sylvania Waters'. He looks forward to seeing it as word of the family has reached him and he feels Laurie and Noeline will be Bob's kind of people.

The controversy that surrounded the show warmed Trevorrow's soul: he sees it as yet another indicator that we will never bury our national polyester flares. The predominant concern about `what will the British think of us?' reaffirmed his opinion that we have no faith in a local identity.

"Poor old Bob couldn't get arrested in Australia, not in the way that he'd like to anyway ... I had to go to England to get famous here.

Funny how it works isn't it? It's the whole cultural cringe really." Bob Downe performs at the Universal Theatre from 4 February to 7 February. Phone: 4193777 or Bass.
Nicole Brady