"Be afraid, be very afraid.."

In a blue shell-suit and white Hush Puppies, Bob Downe literally leaped into action on Saturday night with the vigour and hilarity of a deranged Thunderbird puppet. Balancing a perfectly groomed blonde wig and with dance steps to make Pan's People green with envy, Bob belted out 70s disco classics such as Fame, Voulez-vous coucher avec moi and Xanadu.

His fixed manic grin (which prevented him from singing most of the lyrics), those gleaming white teeth (as real as his hair !?) and fluttering eyelashes had the audience howling with laughter as Bob frolicked, wiggled and pranced like "your mum and dad in Benidorm".

The evening was a side-splitting mixture of chat, stand-up and disco music delivered with pure energy, vivacity and utter campness. In his beige safari suit, Bob terrorised the audience, poked fun at the Brits (he is convinced that the Queen is a Dalek : "Destroy ! Destroy ! OBE! OBE!") and worried about Cliff Richard's capacity for evil!

For an encore he wowed us with a psychadelic kaftan, looking like a cross between Joseph plus Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat and Linda McCartney, singing "I am what I am". And the audience loved what he is.

Bob Downe is Australia's best export since Skippy the Bush Kangaroo ("She's in a retirement home now, you can pay two bucks to go and prod her with a stick !").

Hyperactive, endearing and wildly hilarious, he is a wonder in beige who left his audience screaming for more.
Kerri Howard

Bob Downe is the alter-ego of Australian journalist-turned-comedian Mark Trevorrow. Mark made his break into musical comedy in the early eighties, releasing a couple of obscure songs that nobody remembers (Tintarella Si Luna and The Beat Goes On), and in 1984 hit upon the idea of Bob Downe - a parody of a Daytime TV Presenter.

He describes him as "the synthetic showbiz all-rounder, who sings, dances and takes VERY good care of his hair". Bob came to Britain in 1988 and decided to stay, leaving the world of Daytime TV behind to concentrate on his singing career.

Bob comes from Murwillumbah ("What do you mean you've never heard of it ?! It's like Hull, with palm trees.."), a sugar cane and banana growing area just down from Brisbane on the New South Wales coast. He now lives in a caravan with his mum Ida (Ida Downe, geddit?), former Banana Queen in 1954, '55 & '57. "As you can see," says 'confirmed bachelor' Bob, I'm from a long line of Banana Queens!"

Bob is currently shying away from too much press attention, choosing not to publicise his engagement to English comedienne Lily Savage (!). He says "It's a risk I have to accept as a minor celebrity fast climbing my way to the middle."

Since Bob's creation, he has gained cult status and in 1992 won the Glasgow Mayfest award. He is perhaps best known for his appearances on Viva Cabaret, last year's Royal Variety Performance and That's Showbusiness.

Bob also has an album Bob Downe's Greatest Hits available on import through Pinnacle Records, and a TV special - The Bob Downe Special (naturally) - in the offing on ITV, through Watchmaker Productions.

Looks like the Prince of Polyester is here to stay !...
Kerri Howard

Bob Downe, the acute creation of Mark Trevorrow, the former arts editor of Australian Vogue (really), is surfing the current wave of character comedy. As you swim through a circuit full of comedians pretending to be security guards, agit-prop activists and Page Three Stunnas, it would now almost be a surprise to happen upon a straight stand-up telling jokes about his girl troubles.

Still, there's nothing wrong with character comedy when it's done well - and in Downe's case, it certainly is. From the too-shiny teeth and the blonde big hair that probably requires its own Equity card to the late- vintage Stewart Granger safari-suit and the airplane-wing-sized collars ("By the way, guys, your collar isn't big enough this summer unless you can see it with your peripheral vision"), Downe has pinpointed the infuriating inanity of an Easy Listening compere.

But there's a lot of bite behind the blandness. Downe is obviously a graduate summa cum laude of the Dame Edna School of Ritual Audience Humiliation. When a woman who had unwisely parked herself in the front row told him that her name was Jackie, he pulled an exquisite face of disgust before dismissing it as suitable only for a magazine costing "one shilling and sixpence - 'free comb with this issue'."

He is also canny enough to send himself up. When he came on stage at the beginning in a headache-inducing turquoise shell-suit, he pre-empted the laughter be pointing out that "I look like a Fuji throwaway camera. Let's face it, it's Sunday afternoon in Romford this outfit, isn't it?" Later he patted his hair protectively and warned people of the dangers of candles: "Some of us have to be very careful around a naked flame. One little spark and pouf! . . . My hair is looked after by my very good friends at Toys R Us." After a joke of dubious taste about the Carpenters, he astutely gauged the mood of the audience and turned it to his advantage by commenting: "any more like that and I'll be working on the QE2."

Towards the end, as he flashed his hairy chest at the audience and went among them for a gloriously camp version of "I Will Survive", the crowd went Wembley-wild. Capturing the mood of at least half the nation, Downe exclaimed: "We can have a riot in here. Who needs Euro96?"

Bob Downe, New London Theatre, London WC2 (0171-344 4444), 19 and 24 June
James Rampton