The Prince of Polyester, the King of Kitsch, the all-singing, all-dancing, "grinning, prancing, living Ken doll." is returning to Perth with his brand new swinging sensation, Cold August Night at the Regal Theatre.

He's been chatting by email with the POST's Sarah McNeill.

"It's been a life-long dream of mine to ROCK, ever since I saw Hush, Sherbet and Abba on Countdown.

People think of me as a poofy cabaret disco singer, and quite frankly I can't imagine why. I have the raunch of any Iglesias you care to mention, the hair of David Cassidy and the animal magnetism of Kamahl.

Why wouldn't I strut my stuff in vinyl and brush denim? With Farnsey and Barnsey in their twilight years, surely it's time for Downsey!

And if I can't have a stadium, then the Regal will do quite nicely, ta."

Threatening to become more hardcore - well "beigecore, it goes with more accessories" - Bob believes Australia has become more accepting of his unique brand of sexuality and glamour.

"Exactly. You've got my number and it's an Optus Premium. It's been a long, careful, training process. I'm kind of like a horse whisperer to the culture. 'Easy boy, eeeasy...'

Bert and Kerri Ann have helped a lot, actually."

Living out his dream to rock 'n' roll all night Bob is including all his favourite songs.

"They're the only ones I do (unless someone's paying me)!

Look out for Radar Love, Footloose, I'm So Excited, The Joker, We Will Rock You, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes), and The Carnival Is Over -- for the mums.

And some extra special training for the Love Theme from Titantic. It's a strict regime. Underwater laps, lots of ice cream, tight-necked T-shirts and no more than four hours' sleep -- in the afternoon. Debra Byrne taught it to me. Well, I got it from her video.

And this time, my MUM is appearing with me! What rock star ever dared to do that? Not Eminem, that's fer sure!

She's only coming to Perth because I told her we'd arrange accommodation for her at the CWA hostel in Bunbury. She loves the coach and will commute to Subi for the shows.

Not only Mum, I've got Big Patti, my chief of security. I've got Spud my roadie, Soleil Moon-Frye my backup chick, and my band, the X-Rentals -- they were on Countdown once in 1983.

As for Pastel, she's in a tent on Nauru, a little mix-up with her visa but we're sorting it out and I'm sending her bananas, bottled water and Women's Weekly's so she's fine. And Mark's (manager/doppelganger Trevorrow) been sucked into the vortex of the ABC and quite frankly I don't think he'll ever get out. In five years you'll find him after midnight on Radio National, or hosting Compass. And quite frankly that's where he belongs. So as you can see I wish him all the very, VERY best. These rumours of friction between us are ridiculous -- we never speak so how could there be problems between us?

And while Mum's on the road, Nana's still knitting up a storm -- she's 113 this year -- and she's up to her millionth blanket for the lepers in the Northern Territory. We just haven't had the heart to tell her the last one was cured in 1952!"

Bob Downe's Cold August Night will be on at the Regal Theatre from November 20 to 24, playing Wednesday to Friday at 8pm, Saturday at 7pm and Sunday at 5pm. Tickets are available through BOCS.
Sarah McNeill

Downe is returning to Perth with his new show, Cold August Night, inspired by Neil Diamond's legendary concerts and the era of stadium rock. He goes hardcore and heavy metal with a thumping live band, special surprise guests and a list of songs straight from the halcyon days of Molly Meldrum and Countdown. Among the huge hits Downe will be bringing to the stage are I'm So Excited, Born to be Alive, We Will Rock You and – God forbid – Love is a Battlefield.

Downe's alter ego, Mark Trevorrow, has been in showbiz since 1980, when he co-founded the comedy troupe Gloria and the Go Gos with Wendy de Waal. The troupe would later reform as the Gobos and notch up two chart hits with Tintarella di Luna and The Beat Goes On.

The character of Bob Downe, perennial safari-suited dag, was born out of a 1984 collaboration with Cathy Armstrong parodying the cheesy cult US program Entertainment Tonight.

In January 1987, at the suggestion of his manager, Bob Downe went solo at the Harold Park Hotel's famous ‘Comics in the Park' night in Sydney. Since then he has worked and toured extensively, released three albums and worn dozens of safari suits.

In December he premiered a new cabaret show, singing as himself with a jazz trio, at the Black Cat in Melbourne. The weekly show played until February, to acclaim and sellout audiences.

In March this year he opened ‘Cold August Night' at the Adelaide Festival Fringe. It has since played to capacity audiences at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, the State Theatre in Sydney and the Powerhouse in Brisbane.

Cold August Night runs from November 20 to 24 at the Regal Theatre in Subiaco. Tickets from BOCS.

Grab a Chiko Roll, scull a can of Tab and make a dash for the front for the man who put the "shhhhhh" into "mosh".

It is hard to avoid using the words "colourful" and "spectacular" to describe such a large-scale event, but they only partly express the celebratory atmosphere and mood of the Gay Games Opening Ceremony.

The sight of thousands of participants - representing 77 countries from Antarctica to Zimbabwe - spilling into the stadium to the strains of the Southern Stars and the Village People was remarkable. As their numbers grew and filled the stadium seats the effect was uplifting.

Before the procession, Bob Downe warmed up the pompom-waving crowd with a heartily camp version of Australia, Australia, and the countdown to the ceremony was led by Ian "Molly" Meldrum without a single "um".

Divided into segments titled Welcome, Struggle, Remembrance, Acceptance, Celebration and Finale, the ceremony was no empty spectacle. Conceived by director Ignatius Jones and produced by Katrina Marton, it was thoughtful, historic, stylish and jubilant.

What can only be called a triumph was anchored by the dedication of volunteers and the genuine emotion of artists who, in words, music, song and dance, articulated feelings of open-mindedness and love, as well as a sense of ongoing struggle amid ignorance and fear.

Directed by Jones and Raymond Blanco, the indigenous Welcome segment was striking with the use of fire and handprints projected onto the stadium ground, while Deborah Cheetham's interpretation of Dali Mana Gamarada was soul-stirring. Acknowledging the Eora people, the welcome set an inclusive tone. The lighting was excellent. Struggle and Remembrance, directed by James Lee, brought a blend of nostalgia, flamboyance and fun in the shape of a not exactly overworked Jimmy Somerville who, perched on the centre podium, delivered a thumping version of Why, choreographed by Ian Knowles.

He was followed by the Purple Onion torch-song cabaret of Judi Connelli and her do-or-die versions of This is My Life and I Am What I Am. Then came Paul Capsis in body-hugging pink, whipping up a storm with a near-chaotic take on David Bowie's Suffragette City.

But the peak - aside from Justice Michael Kirby's poignant, empowering speech - came when kd lang graced the arena. With candles lit across the stadium, many struggling to stay alight in the wind, she sang Rodgers and Hammerstein's You'll Never Walk Alone accompanied by the massed Gay and Lesbian Choirs of the World. This moment could have been mawkish, but lang's poise and vocal power made it thrilling and moving.

"Now it's time to dance," she half crooned and, without losing a beat, skipped into Garson and Hilliard's Our Day Will Come, during which she displayed her natural charm and assurance.

Acceptance, staged by Gillian Minervini and choreographed by Virginia Ferris, was luminous and bold, with a Dykes on Bikes procession adding to the drama. Leah Howard belted out Sexual Revolution, then Shauna Jensen gave her all to the brilliant You Gotta Be, its words - "You gotta be cool, you gotta be calm, you gotta stand together ... All I know, love will save the day" - sung and hummed by thousands.

Ahead of the showgirl-and-fireworks finale staged by Gary Leeson, Ignatius Jones and segment co-director Paul Cordeiro conjured up South Pacific magic, complete with a volcanic eruption. Combining Keith Hawley's fine choreography and an impressive swirling ocean lighting design, it was magically climactic, the voice of Peretta Anggerek ringing out with Bali Hai and Puccini's Un bel Di.

The evening was, in a word, fabulous.
Bryce Hallett

"Hello strange and beautiful family," bellowed Canadian songstress KD Lang before serenading the estimated 25,000 athletes, aides and spectators at a Sydney cricket field.

Lang's rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk alone" was one of the breaks from an endless string of disco tunes welcoming athletes from around the world.

The organisers gave passing nods to the struggles of the gay activists of previous generations and the impact of AIDS on the gay community, with pictures of such high profile AIDS victims as the actor Rock Hudson and the rock singer Freddy Mercury flashed on a giant TV screen.

But flying under the banner "participation, inclusion and personal best" the games, the sixth in 20 years, are clearly a celebration of sport and hedonism.

Mixing aerobics and same-sex ballroom dancing with traditional sports, organisers hope to draw 30,000 people and $100 million to Australia's biggest city, home to the 2000 Olympics and the flamboyant annual Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

Wild dance parties and a cultural festival featuring the irreverent "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence", former "Golden Girl" Bea Arthur and scores of plays, exhibitions and performances are on the agenda for the less athletically gifted.

Australian crooner Bob Downe kicked off the seven-day event with the lyrics "God Bless Australia, skiing all summer and surfing all winter," referring to reverse seasons of the Southern Hemisphere. Behind him transvestites boogied in hot pants printed in the Australian flag.

Those seated were given pom poms and candles, the latter employed by some as hand warmers after temperatures dropped to unseasonable levels.

But no one was complaining as a constant stream of entertainers took their turn on the field.

The athletes, aged 18 to 89, proved just as entertaining, many garbed in outlandish takes on national costumes or prancing near-naked hand in hand to cheering spectators.

Representatives from the Netherlands wore giant clogs on their feet, while a team from Florida donned pink flamingos on their heads.

A group of Australian Aborigines were dubbed the "Out Blacks".

Some of the loudest applause was heard for the small contingent of Indian and Pakistani athletes, who opted to march together in a show of gay solidarity.

Participants from countries where homosexual relations are outlawed or otherwise proscribed, such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq, were also given a warm greeting.

Fans almost totally packed Sydney's Aussie Stadium at Moore Park - which has a 38,000 capacity - for the gig, including up to 13,000 competitors from more than 80 countries.

This evening's opening ceremony, entitled Fabulous, was broken into several different parts telling the history of Australia's gay and lesbian rights movement.

At about 10.15pm (AEDT) lang took to the stage, performed two songs and then was serenaded by fans in the almost-packed stadium.

"I can't believe 30,000 queers sang me happy birthday," she said before leaving the stage.

Diva Shauna Jensen filled the space left by lang, performing popular Des'ree hit `You Gotta Be'.

NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir officially opened the Gay Games after an emotional speech by High Court Justice Michael Kirby who received a standing ovation from the crowd when he took to the stage.

Among the other dignitaries present were NSW Premier Bob Carr and Tourism Minister Sandra Nori.

Comedian and lounge crooner extraordinaire Bob Downe kicked off the entertainment with half a dozen Speedo-clad, Bondi Beach surf-lifesavers joining him on stage as he belted out his own creation, `God Bless Australia'.

Artistic Director Ignatius Jones earlier drew cheers from his like-minded audience when he declared that he'd never needed to come out of the closet.

"I have been lucky, I have never had to come out, I was never in," Jones told the crowd.

"I have done quite a few games now, but this will be the biggest and certainly one of the sexiest, the funniest and the most moving."

Jones coordinated Sydney's Millennium fireworks celebration and the fireworks for the 2000 Olympics closing ceremony.

Australian music legend Ian "Molly" Meldrum told the crowd that the recent terrorist activity would do nothing to dampen the Australian spirit.

"This is thrilling for me just to be here. It is a proud moment," he said.

"Over the last few weeks there have been people who want to harm Australia, the world, our good fun-loving spirit.

"I just want to say that they have not succeeded."

Meldrum then took a step back in time, counting down the way he used to on his popular music program of the 70s and 80s - Countdown.

Immediately following Meldrum was Sydney's Southern Star drag troupe, performing their own version of 80s Toni Basil hit Mickey - `Hey Sydney'.

An announcement earlier by a Gay Games source that Kylie Minogue would appear at the event was a joke, a spokesman said.

It is television's comforter. Nostalgia may not be what it used to be, but when you're having a rotten year, worrying about the mortgage, the long reach of the Texas lawman or why nobody is doing anything about everything you know is really important, it does offer escape.

So, as our uncertainties grow, is TV again taking us back to the security of the past? And are we scurrying to those times when lantern-jawed Australians spoke their mind? No wonder we look for the repackaged version of the way we were. We want something that provides a warmer glow.

The past is never expensive programming, generally depending on slick editing and audience amnesia about it's weaker links. On Channel 7 it can be the talents of Steve Vizard, on Channel 9 the antics of Graham Kennedy and Bert Newton on Channel 10, where for a 16-to-39 demographic anything before 2000 is history, there's been The Fabulous 70s.

The ABC, of course, has been in retro phase for years. Drawing on the documentary treasures of our past, which it packs into ludicrously over-titled umbrella series, it sometimes seems still to be yearning for those Moses or Duckmanton years.

Where better, then, to go to the time we told Frank Sinatra he should say sorry, or forget that trip back to Palm Springs? What more splendid silliness than when Gough Whitlam, Bob Hawke and the ACTU took on the big cheese in the rat pack?

In The Way We Were, that over-exhilarated fan Mark Trevorrow takes us on an entertainingly eccentric trip through Sinatra's passionate long-time "affair" with Australia. Carefully selected footage covers all from 1955 and the first of seven visits to 1991 and the last. In also examining those times, from the twist dance craze and six o'clock swill to the white-shoe excesses of the 1990s, it shows how much we have changed.

This is more of a tribute to Ol' Blue Eyes, than a Sinatra concert singalong. There are, in fact, precious few Sinatra delivered pieces in the show, though when you do hear the maestro belting out New York, New York or still triumphant on stage in 1991, you do remember how cleverly he guarded that voice.

The ABC show, under the care of executive producer Ted Robinson, starts a little shakily. Trevorrow (aka comedian Bob Downe) interrupts the Sinatra clips with gags and linking material.

Then he introduces Sydney club singer Norman Erskine, who was cast in the 1950s and 1960s as the support act for Sinatra at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Erskine sings The Way You Look Tonight, but it is his Sinatra stories, his obvious affection for the singer, that draws us back in. "If Sinatra liked you, he would die for you," says Erskine. "But if he hated you he went out of his way to hate everyone around you."

Trevorrow lines up other fans and players at the bar. Publicist Patti Mostyn, TV producer Gail Jarvis, and John Pond, the then executive manager of Sydney's Boulevard Hotel, take us through the infamous press "bums and hookers" tour of 1974. Pond tells of building a new kitchen in the hotel for Sinatra the hostage, and of impressing the superstar by receiving a call in the singer's suite from the prime minister.

However, the union black ban and "international incident" didn't end our affair. Promoter Tony Cochrane recalls how he managed to bring Sinatra back to Australia in 1988 for the opening of Sanctuary Cove (with a $1.3 million persuader).

Gina Riley sings Joker In The Pack with Trevorrow and then the host is twirling his eyes through a medley with the inexhaustible Erskine. By this time the early interruptions have become forgivable. You're ready to start sorting through the Sinatra albums again. You're prepared to remember it all as it was. That's life? Even nostalgia has its moments.
The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra in Australia, ABC, Sunday 7.30pm.

Thank goodness for Ted Robinson, executive producer of The Way We Were - Frank Sinatra In Australia (tonight, 7.30pm, ABC). One of the country's most creative television makers, Robinson has put together a nifty little show, hosted by Bob Downe's friend, Mark Trevorrow, and based on Frank Sinatra's relationship with Australia. It is a simple idea that works because of the music and the subject, and Robinson and his team should be congratulated for trying something new, bold and cost-effective.

But The Way We Were is not all about Sinatra. Trevorrow, Erskine, Riley and others flesh out the cultural backdrop against which the great man performed. Each time he visited Australia - from the first visit in 1955 to the final 1991 concert - Sinatra discovered an increasingly sophisticated and cosmopolitan community (a possible exception: his 1988 $1 million performance at Mike Gore's Sanctuary Cove development in Queensland). And even during the famous 1974 tour when Ol' Blue Eyes told a first-night audience at Melbourne's Festival Hall all journalists were "bums, and they're always going to be bums ... the broads who work in the press are the hookers of the press", the bond between nation and superstar remained strong.

No more Forsyte family, but the ABC's 8.30pm timeslot tonight has a worthy replacement. Like The Forstye Saga, Me and Mrs Jones is about relationships, betrayal, misplaced trust and lust. This is a modern drama, starring the gorgeous Caroline Goodall as British prime minister Laura Bowden - a lonely woman who falls in love with a scallywag journalist, Liam Marple (Robson Green). The problem is, Laura is married, and just six weeks away from an election. And Liam has the dirt - on her private life, on her spindoctors' views of how she'll fare in the polls, and on her husband, Richard (played superbly by Phillip Quast). Will he remain loyal, or opt instead for a career coup?

There's a touch of the The House of Cards about this two-hour drama, although sadly there is no menacing Francis Urquhart lurking in the corridors of Westminster. But the story is just as far-fetched - are we honestly expected to believe a British PM would fall head-over-heels in love when a man in a shiny suit asks her to dance at a party fundraiser?

Then again, who would have thought John Major was a high-performance lover with a penchant for blue underpants? In UK politics, anything is possible.
Corrie Perkin

You only have to look at Bob Downe, Mark Trevorrow's camp, flare-wearing comedic alter ego, to realise the man's got an unhealthy obsession with the past.

But Bob's cheesy smile gets a rest in Trevorrow's latest venture, a half-documentary, half-variety show called The Way We Were - Frank Sinatra in Australia.

This time Trevorrow appears as himself: a passionate library archivist, serious journalist and unabashed retro maniac.

When someone had the idea of using Frank Sinatra's seven visits to Australia over five decades as an excuse for digging into the ABC's archives television footage, Trevorrow was the obvious choice to star.

"I'm a shocker. I've got piles and piles of my own reference," he says.

In his pre-comedy days as a journalist, Trevorrow's editors at The Sun in Melbourne would often find the young cadet holed up in the archive room for days on end.

Taking up his role as host, singer and journalist in the Sinatra special, Trevorrow has relished the chance to interview some who had first-hand encounters with Sinatra. He was also pleased to "wear a suit and look like a human being for a change, instead of looking like clown".

Making the show left him impressed with Sinatra, who never failed to make an impact.

"He'd punch someone before he'd answer them," says Trevorrow of the singer.

"Everyone got stuck on the drama. But just watching his performances... he's bigger than Elvis."

Footage of Aussies doing the twist and our first DJ, described as a "late-night musical coordinator, tirelessly changing disks till four in the morning", is woven into yarns surrounding Sinatra's visits.

Trevorrow also interviews Norman Erskine, a Newtown boy and king of Sydney's club singers in the 1950s and '60s who became a support act for Sinatra in Las Vegas.

The crooner also played a part in a young Trevorrow's life.

"Sinatra is just the musical wallpaper of my life. I grew up loving jazz. I was given a wind-up gramophone as my first record player. All we had was all these 78s of all these people we didn't even know - like Sammy Davis and Ella Fitzgerald and Frank. We just knew we loved these records. This is while The Beatles and all the rock and roll was exploding around us too."

Trevorrow believes Australia is ready to look back at the time of Sinatra's visits.

"As a nation gets more confident they're more interested in their own history.

"I think we think of our history as being Captain Cook and the convicts but the most interesting history is in the last 50 or 60 years because we've gone from being a complete provincial backwater to being a completely multicultural, cosmopolitan society."

The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra in Australia, Sunday, ABC, 7.30pm
Vanessa McCausland

Instead, the comedian is donning a suit, a serious face and using his journalistic skills.

Trevorrow updated his image for a new ABC special The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra in Australia.

The special draws on ABC archival footage and interviews with people who were there to detail Sinatra's seven visits to Australia and the way society changed over those five decades.

"The job requires a straighter approach as opposed to a stupid, camp approach," Trevorrow explains. "Bob is something that's more about satire whereas this was about talking to the people involved and singing 'straight'. "

Interview subjects include Trevorrow's friend Gina Riley; television executive Gail Jarvis, who accidentally became part of Sinatra's entourage during his controversial 1974 visit; John Pond, who took care of Sinatra and his alcohol requirements while he was stranded in Sydney; and the Australian promoter Tony Cochrane who lured the singer back to Australia.

But Trevorrow says his favourite interviewee was singer Norman Erskine, who supported Sinatra's Rat Pack and tells colourful stories about the "saloon singer".

"He's like everyone's favourite old grandpa," says Trevorrow who hopes The Way We Were will be popular enough to warrant a series.

The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra in Australia, ABC, Sunday, 7.30pm.
Jennifer Dudley

Melbourne nightclub singer Norm Erskine was so beloved by the city's bookies, so the story goes, that he would sometimes give them a private late night performance, with the bookmakers throwing money at the stage as they called out requests. Big Norm ended the night up to his knees in folding money.

Ted Robinson, television producer, loves a good yarn and for much of the past year he has been happily trawling through Melbourne's past, uncovering gems such as this tale about Norm Erskine, a bright light in the nightclub scene of the 1950s.

Robinson has a special fondness for the dark, whisky-soaked world of Melbourne's nightclubs at the time when gents wore hats and their dates dressed up to the nines. It's an era that he believes deserves a documentary or series of its own.

Robinson first met Erskine through his research for Shout, the miniseries he directed for Channel Seven in 1996, and turned to him again for his latest project, The Way We Were - Frank Sinatra in Australia.

"I'm fascinated by the seamy underbelly of Australia at that time, and Norm knows as much about the underbelly, seamy and otherwise, as anyone I've ever met," Robinson says.

Erskine, still crooning sweetly so many years later, is one of the stars of Frank Sinatra in Australia. Sitting at a glossy black grand piano, he tells of being discovered by Sinatra in the 1950s and travelling to Las Vegas to open for the Rat Pack. "When we went there it was 1957, he was God. Sinatra said 'cigarette' and nine lighters came out," he says.

Lounging across the top of the grand piano, while Erskine plays, sings and reminisces about Sinatra, is Mark Trevorrow, best known for his Bob Downe character. Trevorrow, we quickly discover, is a big Sinatra fan.

While Erskine and others recollect their encounters with Sinatra on his many visits to Australia, Trevorrow smoothly plays host, narrator and enthusiastic fan.

The show is filmed in a nightclub setting, with a live audience seated at small round tables. It is as much, if not more, about Melbourne as about the famous singer.

Of Sinatra's famous scenes with ex-wife Ava Gardner in 1959 Trevorrow says: "Hollywood private lives being played out before our eyes under the Melbourne spotlight. Who knew Melbourne even had a spotlight?"

Well-chosen news clips provide great snapshots of Melbourne over the years - one from the 1960s explains without a hint of a smirk that strippers may strip down to a minimum of "two stars and bikini briefs which must be at least half an inch on either side".

The media had a big part to play in many of Sinatra's tours, and much is made of his "bums and hookers" jibe in 1974. Former ABC head of television Gail Jarvis was a 19-year-old cadet for Channel Nine at the time and was one of the reporters who provoked the star's anger.

Sinatra's insult came after a series of mishaps no doubt deeply wounding to his ego. At Tullamarine no one met his plane, he was driven into town in the wrong car, and at Festival Hall the singer had to push his way through the media throng to bash on the stage door before he was allowed inside.

Jarvis, who with a cameraman was mistakenly included in Sinatra's convoy, was among those chasing Ol' Blue Eyes.

It is hard to imagine today the outrage that followed Sinatra's so-called attack on the press. Film from the time details what became a national incident with a union black ban on Sinatra's plane, and phone calls from then prime minister Gough Whitlam.

Ted Robinson laughs at the irony of Bob Hawke, then head of the ACTU and with a wild reputation, fiercely defending the honour of the country's women journalists.

After more than 40 years spent working in television, including five years as the ABC's head of comedy, Robinson has an impressive collection of ideas and talent just waiting for the right vehicle. He and producer Pam Swain hope the Sinatra special may be the first of a series of shows using music to look back on Australian history.

"With things like Shout and Long Way to the Top (the television series on Australian music) we've tapped into a wave that we didn't know was there. My guess is that it's probably to do with baby boomers wanting to examine where they've come from."

The Way We Were - Frank Sinatra in Australia screens on Sunday at 7.30pm on the ABC.
Clare Kermond

Why also does he insist on perpetuating the stereotype of gay people as shallow and obsessed with showbusiness?

In The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra in Australia (ABC 7.30pm Sunday), the gushing, fawning, I'm-Frank's-biggest-fan Trevorrow/Downe has been encouraged by the producers to turn it into a program about him and Frank Sinatra.

The program is supposedly meant to be "a look at how Australian culture and society changed between Frank Sinatra's first visit in 1955 and his last in 1991".

Although along the way it takes in the spirited response of the Australian trade union movement to Sinatra's calling Australian journalists "hookers and pimps" (he was black-banned and couldn't even get a plane out of the country) it comes across as astonishingly pointless.

Hollywood has routinely remade films from other countries for most of its existence, so it's pleasing in a way to see a film that is obviously a rip- off of two of Hollywood's successes. The rip-off is Me And Mrs Jones (ABC 8.30pm Sunday), and the films they are stealing ideas (and even bits of dialogue) from are Rob Reiner's movie for Castle Rock, The American President, and Ivan Reitman's White House comedy Dave.

The American President was about a US President who falls in love while in office, and the political as well as personal complications that ensue. Me And Mrs Jones is about a British Prime Minister who falls in love while in office, and the political as well as personal complications that ensue.

There are some significant differences, however. The sexes have been switched, for starters.

The US President was male (Michael Douglas); the PM is female (Caroline Goodall). He was a widower; she is married.

There are scenes that are almost direct copies, like the President's/PM's walk from residential quarters to office, with various staffers joining him/her along the way each in full cry over some issue or other.

Similarly, with dialogue: in Reiner's film, lobbyist Annette Bening reminds Michael Douglas' President that she is becoming romantically involved with "the leader of the free world"; in the British film, Robson Green's journalist pretending to be a fund-raiser observes to Goodall that he is becoming chummy with "one of the leaders of the Western world".

There's even a token ethnic staffer (Nitin Ganatra), just like there was in Douglas' White House. For good measure there is also one scene (the incognito car drive where the police jump them for a traffic offence) and some other bits of business that are lifted straight from Dave.

Nevertheless, for all the deficiencies and plagiarisms in Caleb Ransom's script, Me And Mrs Jones is a likeable light romantic drama.

To allow for Caroline Goodall's character to have a love affair without viewer criticism, her husband is made gay. Phillip Quast plays this character with sympathy and understanding, most crucially retaining our sympathy whilst preparing to leave his wife.

Admittedly, for most of the time, Goodall never actually impresses as having what it takes to become Prime Minister in the first place. However, in the well-handled scene of the television debate where, to the amazement of her staff, she turns the tables on the Leader of the Opposition, she does show a little of the necessary steel.

The supporting characters are all excellent, although the one that makes an impact for me is Aisling O'Sullivan as the PM's elegant female bodyguard, Max. Not exactly pretty, O'Sullivan makes her character both forceful and likeable.

For a television journalist working in mainstream British TV, John Pilger is remarkably honest and forthright in exposing the reality behind the propaganda most of his colleagues are content with peddling.

In Palestine Is Still The Issue, screening in the Cutting Edge slot (SBS 8.30pm Tuesday), he shows — just as he did 25 years ago in a documentary with the same title — that Palestinians are still refugees in their own land.

He reveals the Jewish settlements as part of a policy of apartheid; he looks at the plight of Palestinians under occupation; and he presents the rarely heard voices of dissenting Israelis who condemn their government.

Israeli historian Ilan Pappe says that the final peace offer to the Palestinians left them with only ten per cent of what used to be Palestine. Pappe also comments that, "I think the holocaust memory does not allow any moral criticism of anything that Israel does" — a point taken up by Ishay Rosen-Zvi, an Israeli soldier who now refuses to serve.

He says the Israeli establishment's branding of its opponents as anti- Semitic is "a huge bluff" and that instead to critically analyse the government's position is a "patriotic duty".

Rami Elhanan's father survived Auschwitz but his grandparents and six of his aunts and uncles died there. In 1977 his 14-year-old Israeli daughter was killed by a suicide bomber.

Reflecting on his daughter's death, Elhanan, an ex-soldier, says: "If you think from the head and not from the guts and you look at what made people do (this).people who are desperate enough to commit suicide you have to ask yourself, "Have you contributed in any way to this despair, this craziness

"The suicide bomber was a victim the same way as my girl was, of that I'm sure."

Fatima Abed Rabo also lost her child, a son who died shortly after he was born in the street because Fatima was refused permission to pass a roadblock and go to hospital. While Pilger abhors suicide bombings as terrorist acts he also defines terror as the routine control exerted over Palestinians of almost every aspect of their lives.

Pilger examines the American and British support of Israel, which is now the fourth largest military power in the world.

The British Government condemns Israel for its illegal occupation of the territories but in the first 14 months of the current Intifada it approved 230 export licences for weapons and military equipment.

The British movie Land And Freedom (ABC 10.55pm Tuesday) is a Trotskyist attack on the Spanish and international comrades who fought for the Spanish republic against Franco's fascists. It aroused the ire of British veterans of the International Brigades for eulogising instead the members of the treacherous Trotskyist group POUM.

Try to catch The Big Picture: Mystery Of The Jurassic (ABC 8.30pm Wednesday). Despite its unnecessary attempts to make its subject mysterious and significant, this is an important documentary that tells how scientists are at last filling in one of the big gaps in the evolutionary record.

It finally explains what happened in the 40 or 50 million years of the Middle Jurassic that caused the dinosaurs, plain small creatures up to then, to diversify and grow large. Fascinating.

The heroic story of the slave who led a revolt of the oppressed against the might of the Roman Empire is told anew in As It Happened: The Real Spartacus (SBS 7.30pm Saturday).
Rob Gowland

Frank Sinatra loved Australia - he must have - he visited here seven times over five decades. On one of those visits, in 1974, Sinatra fell foul of the Australian trade union movement after he called the local media "hookers and pimps".

The Way We Were - Frank Sinatra in Australia provides a unique way for us to look at how Australian culture and society changed between Frank's first visit in 1955 and his last in 1991. Against a backdrop of footage showing Sinatra and a very different Australia, and in a setting reminiscent of the glamorous night spots of the time, Sinatra fan, Mark Trevorrow (alias Bob Downe), interviews some of the key figures involved, and finally, unable to restrain himself, joins crooner Norman Erskine and Kath and Kim star Gina Riley in a medley of Sinatra ballads.

Norman Erskine, a Newtown boy and king of the club singers in Sydney in the 50s and 60s, went on to be the support act for Sinatra's Rat Pack at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. He tells of his time as part of Frank's entourage, and his tale about dating one of Frank's former girlfriends, actress Martha Hyer, is hilarious. Norman and his band, "The Silver Spades" perform some of Sinatra's best-known songs.

When the unions decided to black ban Sinatra in 1974, and wouldn't refuel his plane, he found himself stranded at The Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne, so he caught a commercial flight to Sydney under an assumed name, and holed up at the Boulevard Hotel. Now for the first time, we get the inside story from John Pond, then an Executive Manager at the hotel, about what really happened there.

Mark also chats to Gail Jarvis, who later went on to become one of the most powerful television executives in the country. But in 1974 she was a brash 19 year old, who was on the spot and in the line of fire when Sinatra called her and her colleagues "hookers of the press".

In 1988, when no-one thought Frank would ever come here again, Australian promoter, Tony Cochrane, tells Mark how he flew to the US and doggedly pursued Sinatra's manager until he got a meeting. When he did, he made them an offer they couldn't refuse, and Frank came back to Australia to open Sanctuary Cove in Queensland!

The press of course was sceptical, and were still saying "Will Sinatra come?" even when he was already in the country. That coup changed the young promoter's life, and he subsequently brought Frank back in 1989 with Sammy Davis Jnr and Liza Minnelli, and yet again for The Final Concert tour in 1991.

Frank Sinatra in Australia takes a look at Sinatra the man, and provides a glimpse of the past, through the music, the fads, and the scandals - The Way We Were.

Production Details:
Executive Producer Ted Robinson, Producer Pam Swain.

It's been four years since Downe's last London show, and his ardent followers gave him a hysterical reception.

He has some new songs, but the format of his lounge show at the Bloomsbury Theatre hasn't changed much since he knocked this city sideways with his TV performances and live appearances.

Perhaps London has finally caught up with Downe's irony.

From safari jacket to lime-green catsuit via Crimplene doublet, Downe specialises in the fashion that time forgot. As he concedes while sashaying onstage: "If you dress well, you feel good about yourself. By rights, I should top myself."

But all is not lost. This comeback show, Whiter! Brighter!, is a shoestring variety spectacular that admirers of kitsch-onabudget will adore. There is a pair of bickering backing dancers straight out of the Pan's People School of Futile Gesticulating, while a high point is fellow antipodean Julia Morris playing Nancy Sinatra to Bob's Frank on Something Stupid. The musical parodies are easy listening with a dash of disco. The energetic star rolls his eyes and excavates bum notes overlooked by the likes of Neil Diamond and Billy Ocean.

Between songs Downe, alias former journalist Mark Trevorrow, fills in the cod-autobiographical gaps. Showbusiness aided his escape from an outback caravan park - "like New Cross with palm trees". Global success and a fictional engagement to Lily Savage followed. He was recently in New York celebrating Anzac Day, which apparently commemorates Mel Gibson's first hit.

In theory, this synthetic character should be decidedly sub-Everage. The name reeks of cheap innuendo, the jokes are often tooth-rottingly corny and MOR tributes are so late Nineties. Yet combine these components, toss in an unlikely cocktail of charm and bitchiness and an eerie alchemy occurs. Watch out David Blaine, Bob Downe can turn a sow's ear of a show into a surprisingly fetching polyester purse.

• Bob Downe is at the Bloomsbury Theatre until 21 September. Box office: 020 7388 8822.
Bruce Dessau

"I'm a wallaby wannabe looking forward to coming over to Sydney for the Gay Games in November," Somerville says.

"We're just so excited to have Jimmy's supreme vocal talents for what is shaping up to be one hell of a night," says Sydney 2002 Director of Ceremonies Ignatius Jones. "His amazing falsetto remains one of the most recognisable voices in pop music, and his music has always gone to the heart of the pain and joy of what it is to be gay."

Famous for his hits 'Smalltown Boy', 'Don't Leave me This Way' and 'I Feel Love', Somerville will be appearing in the 'Struggle' segment of the Opening Ceremony.

"Jimmy's plaintive voice is the perfect accompaniment for the segment that dramatises the many obstacles gay and lesbian people have had to overcome in the struggle for their rights and their dignity," Jones says.

Joining lang and Somerville will be the cream of Australia's performing talent, alongside a cast of more than 2,100 performers!

The local talent lined up for the night includes counter-tenor Peretta Anggerek, actor and singer Paul Capsis, soprano Deborah Cheetham, queen of Cabaret Judi Connelli, Murwillumbah's own Bob Downe, one of Australia's hottest up-and-coming talents Leah Howard, lesbian soul goddess Shauna Jensen, television legend Molly Meldrum, Beauty and the Beast panellist and Sydney lesbian icon Gillian Minervini, Sydney drag superstar Portia Turbo, and Australia's favourite HIV positive drag performer, Celebrity Big Brother contestant Vanessa Wagner.

"This is an amazing line-up that Sydneysiders already know and love, and that is going to absolutely knock the socks off our international guests," Jones says. "And there are still more surprises up our sleeves."

Opening Ceremony – Saturday 2 November, Aussie Stadium.

The south London venue may have seemed an unusual choice for the first London gig of his tour (which includes 5 nights at the Bloomsbury Theatre), but it certainly suited the King of Kitsch.

The boy from Murwillumbah ("Like New Cross, but with palm trees") distracted the audience from the other events of the day - September 11 - with his disco classics and countless costume changes.

Music plays a prominent part in Downe's stage show - he warbles along to cheesy tunes including Whitney Houston's Greatest Love Of All and John Paul Young's Love Is In The Air.

His material includes merciless critiques of Antipodeans ("Ken oi hiv a droi whoit woin?"), as well as taking the mickey out of Brits.

He shows he has his finger on the pulse too, creating a sequel to TV's I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here - putting Australians on a Virgin Train from Glasgow to Exeter, with no buffet car.

Downe takes the mickey out of himself mercilessly: "I was in the Manchester Commonwealth Games - the 100m run-like-a-girl event", he says, before breaking into a spectacularly effeminate sprint.

He is accompanied by the Apple Fresh Dancers, Amber and Ashley (whose teeth are as white and bright as Bob's shoes) They steal his microphone mid-song and very nearly steal the limelight.

But Downe's silliness ensures his audience is in hysterics throughout: "Honestly, you lot will laugh at anything," he giggles.
Debbie Cuthbertson

Every line, every expression, every costume, every song, every move he made was hysterical. Spotlighted in the opening of a giant washing machine stage prop - trust me, it looked fab! - Bob checked his hair, adjusted a wedgie' in his check trousers and turned to face his appreciative audience.

You either love Bob or hate him I love him. The exaggerated dance routines, the insincere singing voice, the rolling and crossing eyes and those teeth!

The Apple Fresh Dancers, Ashley and Amber, were fantastic. Go-go dancers supreme they had the slickist of routines and were wonderful to look at, even in those fringed, lime green flares! How they kept straight faces at ties when Bob was boogying along with them, I just don't know.

It was a show of undiluted pleasure. Not too crude - Bob doesn't need to resort filth or OTT gay jokes - the character is just comedy genius.

A vision in polyester creations that would put Austin Powers in the shade, Bob acknowledged his style icon status with: "I could walk unchallenged into Purley Conservative Club," closely followed with "my body is a temple - of doom!"

Revelations about his family - mother Ida Downe, sister Di Downe and brother Mark Downe - were hilarious.

His greetings card messages and his closing poem telling us to be a can man, not a can't' were inspired. Comeback soon Bob, in a gloomy world we need people like you.

Footnote: Stand up Alan Carr is one to watch, a comedy support act that made the first half worthwhile and didn't fill the bar.
Christine van Emst

Andrew, who is an Ambassador of Coastcare, a program of the Commonwealth Government's Natural Heritage Trust, says there are simple things people can do to control weeds.

"People can help by not dumping garden clippings, which may contain seeds, onto dunes or bushland areas and not washing clippings down stormwater drains which lead to the beach and ocean."

Speaking on World Environment Day, Federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Warren Truss, said the World Summit on Sustainable Development provided an ideal opportunity for Australia to showcase its community-based landcare approach as a model for sustainable agriculture in other countries.

"An enormous amount of work is being done through the Natural Heritage Trust and the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality in building the capacity of communities to develop and implement regional natural resource management plans," Mr Truss said.

World Environment Day is an annual event and has been celebrated since 1974, and this year the focus was on the lead up to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg from 26 August to 4 September. The summit will assess progress towards the goal of sustainable development during the past decade and develop a plan for the next 10 years.

Environment, conservation and development ministers, including the Federal Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Dr David Kemp, attended the final preparatory session for the Summit in Denpasar, Indonesia to mark World Environment Day.

The World Wide Fund for Nature presented Dr Kemp with a 'Gift of the Earth Award', recognising the action taken by Australia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea under the Tri-National Wetlands Memorandum of Understanding, which has received $100,000 from the Natural Heritage Trust. The Memorandum of Understanding facilitates the conservation of three internationally significant wetland areas, including Australia's Kakadu National Park.

Activities were held around Australia to celebrate World Environment Day, ranging from community planting days and festivals to exhibitions and even a Worm Grand Prix. Similar activities are being held on 7 September to mark National Threatened Species Day and throughout September to mark Biodiversity Month. For more information on how to get involved, free-call 1800 803 772 or have a look on the internet at: www.ea.gov.au/tsd or www.ea.gov.au/biodiversity/month/list.html.

NOT knowing what to expect at a Bob Downe show is a dangerous thing. The Australian hasn't been in Edinburgh for four years and has returned to the festival as funnier as ever before.

With his odd teeth and polyester wig, Downe can make you laugh with just his facial expression.Tonight he is joined by The Appleyard Dancers, Ash and Amber who have some fantastic moves in the various songs that Bob sings.

Downe talks about his hometown and the caravan that he lives in. He talks about his family and about childhood experiences with his influential Auntie Bev. His outfits are outrageous and just add to the humour and his polyester wig also appears to grow very strange.

Downe's show is a fantastic night and very funny. For those who can't make it to Edinburgh, Downe will be touring Scotland straight after the Festival and he is definitely worth checking out.
Iain Dickson

Trying to make a room full of strangers laugh is one of the toughest art forms. But Aussie comics make it look easy, pushing the limits of taste with outrageous routines that have garnered mass appeal.

The Edinburgh Fringe, billed as the largest arts festival, attracts the cream of the profession and this year's Australian stars cover both ends of the comic spectrum.

With superb comic timing, 70s parody Bob Downe belts out his lounge lizard ballads in a high camp routine that glorifies tacky no-hopers. He brings the house down.

Across town, Adam Hills launches a seamless string of outrageous gags about his artificial right leg that has the audience whooping with laughter.

So why is Australian humour so universal? The bewigged and buck-toothed Bob Downe, the alter ego of comedian Mark Trevorrow, reckons: "Australian humour is very broad. It is a suburban culture of comedy."

"New York, New Zealand have been really interesting to play. Ireland is terribly fascinating, north and south," he says after murdering Love Is In The Air with his manic rent-a-tan dancers prancing along with him.

"It has worked so well in so many English-speaking countries. It amazes me how little I have to change it," he says of his kitsch celebrity failure. "Anyone who says it is over as a genre does not know what they are talking about.

"It is a universal sort of humour. The greatest comics are the ones who can play outside their own culture," says the camp comedian who boasts some of the most tasteless, over-the-top costumes ever seen in Edinburgh.

Hills has another theory.

"Australian culture is influenced by America and Great Britain, even Asia. We are a very multicultural nation and I think those influences and the awareness of other cultures is what makes Australian humour travel," he said.

"I grew up watching British and American comedy shows. I am aware of both sides and Australia is somewhere in the middle."

Hills says Australian brashness, disrespect for authority and contempt for snobbish pretence or class consciousness add to the mix of humour. "The Australian attitude is barge ahead regardless of nationality or class. We have this disrespect for authority that comes from the convict days. We are aware of other cultures but we can plough ahead and do what we do regardless."

Hills loves to see just how far he can go. After 13 years in the business, he decided this year to talk on stage for the first time about his disability - he was born without a right foot and wears a false leg.

He lets the audience into the secret with a riotous routine about the trials and tribulations of travelling through airport security with a titanium foot after the September 11 attacks.

"I don't want to get a cheap laugh out of it and it took a lot of practice to get it right," he said of his 2002 show entitled Happy Feet.

Also, it helps to come from a country whose easy-going people are so laid back they are virtually horizontal.

Hills, heading off to do a late night gig with Downe, shrugs and concludes: "If it all goes pear-shaped, I'll go back home, sit on a beach and open a newsagent's."
Paul Majendie

Following hot on the heels of a number of popular comedians from down-under, such as Pam Ford, famed for her raucous stand-up comedy at The Studio, in Beckenham, and the ever-popular Barry Humphries, best known as Dame Edna Everidge, Trevorrow presents a camp cabaret act.

Downe first appeared in the UK at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival alongside stage fiance Lily Savage. He went solo in 1987, playing to an ever-increasing British audience who appreciated his antipodean style.

A full media assault with books and record deals was followed by appearances on British TV including Des O'Connor Tonight, Surprise Surprise, The Jack Dee Variety Show and Night Fever.

Alongside the fast one-liners, audiences can expect tongue-in-cheek recitals of pop hits including That's Life!, Those Lazy Hazy Crazy Days of Summer and Je T'Aime a song Downe once performed live with Julian Clary.

As spoof cabaret acts go, Trevorrow's character has stood the test of time. He even managed to win over Glasgow audiences who are notoriously hard to make laugh landing the Glasgow Mayfest Award in 1992.

Croydon may not be cabaret central yet but this could change with the arrival of the next big singing and laughing sensation all the way from Australia.

- Bob Downe, Ashcroft Theatre, Park Lane, Croydon, September 5, 7.45pm, £14.50, 020 8688 9291.
Chris Patterson

It's been four years since his last Edinburgh and when Downe appeared from the innards of a Speed Queen washing machine in his high-belted jacket, too-short checked slacks and "that" hair ("the kids have to tell me when it's raining"), and launched into Disco Inferno, it was clear that something was just not working any more.

These days, pulling on an orange shirt with an oversized collar is not enough to get an audience on your side. Wigs without wit are not funny, ditto creating the atmosphere of a Seventies-style disco cum karaoke bar where you can't even dance.

To give him credit, Trevarrow is well aware of his character's age. "Say hello to Uncle Bob," he says, noting that the only person older than him on the Fringe is Nicholas Parsons, "with Gyles Brandreth bringing up the rear". And that's the sort of joke to which we were prey, in between the excruciating cover versions. It was about as amusing as a Blue Nun hangover.

Downe is not alone on stage. Pan's People-style dancers Amber and Ash, with their exaggerated dance moves and horror flick smiles, bulk out a show which, without them, would have needed 20 minutes of extra material. At one point Downe leaves the stage for an entire number and we are left watching a couple of coconut-tanned bodies cavort.

The laboured dramatic irony is that he hates the young scamps, choreographed by "Australia's Lionel Blair", he jokes, before deliberately getting the real Lionel confused with Tony. Likewise, the millennium becomes the Minnellium ("Liza was lucky to have a whole 1,000 years named after her"). It wasn't good enough.

A couple of lines revealed Trevarrow's comedy writing capabilities, but this show, with its dusty lines and often fluffed delivery, felt lazy and thrown together.

Trevarrow's endless energy and talent is without question, but he needs to get writing if he wants to be anything more than a hen-night bargain soundtrack (£10 CDs available on the door, anyone?).
Alex O'Connell

Box office: 0131-226 2428

I had seen the Australian comedian Bob Downe on television before, and, to be honest, I never thought all that much of him. I was more than pleasantly surprised then by how much I loved his show when I saw him on the Big Stage. He is a truly vibrant man with a humungous personality that is as bright as his hair and stunning outfits. He sent the crowd wild on numerous occasions with his 'Dad' dancing, animated eyes and versatile jokes . I would also like to commend the 'Kids' Ashley and Amber whose dancing was spectacular to watch. As a team they captivated the audience and will guarantee you a fun filled night.
Nadia Al-Sabouni

Assembly Rooms, 4 – 22 Aug, 7.15pm (8.30pm) £12.50 (£10.50), prices vary, fpp 20.
twrating: 4/5

Bob Downe will appear in "Whiter! Brighter!" at His Majesty's Theatre on Friday, August 30.

Bob Downe is the creation of 43 year-old Australian Mark Trevorrow, and first appeared in the UK at the 1988 Edinburgh Fringe, which led to an appearance in 'best of the Fest' with Lily Savage.

Bob boasts a far-reaching multitude of British television credits including appearances on 'Barrymore', 'Des O'Connor Tonight' and 'The Royal Variety Performance.'

His appearance in Aberdeen will be his second tour appearance following the opening night at the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy.

Bob will sing and joke throughout the night and promises: "I'll tumble for ya!"

The entire show will feature Downe's well-known attention-seeking entrances and costume changes, his dance turns and disco song medleys such as Kung Fu Fighting and Disco Inferno.

In Australia Bob is a national hero - he comes direct to the UK hot on the heels from a sell out national Australian Tour - including four weeks at the Sydney Opera House where he was seen by a 40,000 strong audience.

Bob released his first album, Greatest Hits, in Australia in 1996 and 1998 seen the publication of his first book, 'All Bob Downe'.

Bob's glittering career has been lade with awards, including Cabaret Artiste of the Year at the 1999 Green Room Awards in Melbourne, and receiving the honour again in 2000.

In March, he premiered a new Bob Downe show, a live rock and roll comedy concert titled 'Cold August Night' at the Adelaide Fringe.

The show continued at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and the State Theatre in Sydney - with Bob performing to capacity audiences.

Tickets for the show range between £10.50 and £14.40.

IS that a giant washing machine through which Bob Downe is sweeping onto the stage, or a huge, silver vagina? Who cares? After a four-year absence from the Fringe, Mark Trevorrow's übercamp alter ego has been one of the festival's most eagerly awaited listings.

Following a break like that, Downe would have been as warmly welcomed if he had smashed his way out of a sarcophagus of Kendal mint cake. And he is worth waiting for. Accompanied by his Apple Fresh Dancers, Amber and Ashley, and a string of outfits Austin Powers would have left at Oxfam, Downe shimmies and serenades, high-kicks and minces through 60 tip-top minutes of old school entertainment.

He tells us how he came to be the love child of Harold and Madge Bishop, reminisces about his sun-worshipping, Auntie Bev - who has skin by Louis Vuitton - and bitches about the hat Liz Taylor wore to Liza Minelli's wedding - "it looked like a bird that had run into a windshield".

But despite the title, this is not really a new show. It is the same old Downe, with the same pearly grin and the same kitsch Aussie camp. Only Downe's wig, a greying, dry-weave top-sheet, which he describes as "a Philip Schofield toss-pot", has changed shape in the wash. Even his gags are still making references to the "Minnellium" (sic) and the "2KY bug" (sic).

But Bob Downe is as good as a brand name these days. Better material would certainly scoop Trevorrow an extra star, but his biggest and best gag has been, and always will be, Downe himself. And the king of camp is, despite a spot of arthritis, still alive and kicking.

In fact, if it weren't for the sobering presence of the lovely Amber, Downe still has enough chutzpah to turn a straight man gay. Women, watch out for your husbands.
Matt Warren

Runs until 24 August

Bob is the creation of stand-up Mark Trevorrow and as deliriously outrageous a concept as Barry Humphries' Dame Edna. Like Humphries, Trevorrow is from Melbourne.

He shimmies into view from a large porthole on the stage - the gig is called Whiter and Brighter, the design a sort of front-loading washing machine - accompanied by Avril and Ashley, the Apple Fresh dancers.

His clothes do not disappoint: bright orange shirt, safari jacket, white cowboy boots and a pair of just-too-short Burberry flares.

The platinum wig still does its job too. Bob never knows when it's raining. Or, indeed, when he sounds ridiculous.

The Pan's People feel to his show, the camp karaoke, arm-waving hilarity of it all only works because Bob is in deadly earnest. And, deep down, we love all the trashy songs as much as he does.

There is a wonderful demonstration of how he won silver in the Commonwealth Games. His event was the 100m Run Like A Girl - and he would have won gold had we not put up Dale Winton against him.

So although he remains impossibly big Downe Under (nudge, nudge), he has never really been away. He thinks it's great that Lionel Blair is now Prime Minister and is happy to recall the Minnellium - 'Liza had a whole thousand years named after her.'

But why did no one tell Liza that she had married one of the Thunderbirds? Poor old Bob was ejected from the wedding reception at Madame Tussaud's because he cracked a smile and became animated.

That smile is more of a leer and usually comes with a big growly swoop in the pop numbers and a sideways click on his slightly crossed eyes that fix the audience like a manic laser beam. Half-way through, he changes into his blue non-designer tracksuit but saves the best till last: a livid green ensemble with white tassels dangling from every tuck and pocket.

As Bob and the dancers go crazy to Love Is In The Air, you really know that this is the Edinburgh Festival and the Cringe on the Fringe is here to stay.
Michael Coveney

Until Aug 17, 8.45pm; Aug 18-24. 7.15pm; 0131 226 2428

Venue 3: 20.45 (1hr15), to 17 Aug, then 19.15, to 24 Aug

Also making quite the mark is cheeky chappie Addison Cresswell. Addison's Off the Kerb agency also produces Jonathan Ross.

When Sally Homer introduced Addison to one of our reviewers, the man was charm itself and started laying it on large.

"I hate f***ing journalists. I am going to have you kneecapped, mate."

Now at 4am we believe in the right to reply, but only as long as handguns are not involved. However, it's nice to know there is someone who cares and actually reads what we write.

A doyenne of drivel reckons Addison is his own greatest act. "He's got the cigar, he's a bit like Jim Davidson and he's always going on about 'my boys'."

However, there is the tale of how he got run out of Kilkenny. Maybe he threatened to kneecap the wrong guy. It's not all bluster in old mother Ireland.

Meanwhile, the great man berated one of his flyers with the "Don't you know who I am?" line as he walked into Scotsman Assembly and she gave him a leaflet. Yesterday he was back in, but when he did not get one the hapless flyer got another earful. Addison likes to keep them on their toes.

AN even cheekier chappie is Andy Collier. The Deep Throat producer could be in deep doo-doo. Our girl at the Assembly Room clocked the arrival of the solicitor's letter from Hot Rod, the porno outfit, who claim all British rights on the Linda Lovelace story.

When Hot Rod heard Collier's Fat Bloke were producing the oral history of the film they got on their case.

No, Fat Bloke were not stealing music from the film, because it was crap. However, they have used 90 seconds of dialogue between Linda and Harry Reams. But what's the fuss. We never knew there was that much chat in it. We hear Fat Bloke have told Hot Rod to hop it.

Much more interesting is the name of the chap who wrote Deep Throat. It is Ed Dick.

THE slimline look is in among comics this year. Yuk.

Ross Noble has shed two stones, Marcus Brigstocke's dumped about three, Tina C has tightened up a bit, and as for Scott Capurro he is trim, trim, trim. Jackie Clune though, god bless her, is still sinking the lagers, but with that new hairdo from Klownz she can get away with anything. Meanwhile, Bob Downe's parents, Neil and Ida, have been hanging around Scotsman Assembly reading the papers (fans of the 4am girls?) clad in matching T-shirts with their little Bobby's face on them. Aaaah, how sweet.

ANOTHER little exclusive. Scottie Capurro has got the pox. But before anyone gets worried, it's only a case of common old chicken pox. What a trouper, though, as he played the first two nights at the Scotsman Assembly feeling awful. But no-one need worry - once the spots appear it is no longer infectious. But what concerns spotty Scottie is that it is just so blindingly banal. Now being seized by a bout of consumption, that has a certain glamour.

KAREN Koren has a crisis on her hands at the Gilded Balloon. The hauntings at the Caves continue. Singer Stacey Smith was so spooked she quit, and now there's Annastarsia, a psychic/stand-up. As she was getting changed for her show "a strong manly hand grabbed my bottom". Her show is called Magic Moments, but this wasn't one of them. Apparently, another attractive young female member of staff has had the same experience. It is being blamed on the Cave's famous ghost, a Mr Boots. Between the heavy breathing and the groping, we're beginning to wonder if it might not be ... one of the usual suspects at the Gilded Balloon. We name and shame the phantom groper tomorrow.

HARVEY Nicks was after a Festival act to open their Edinburgh store next week. Our suggestion of someone from Shopping and F***ing was turned down. Instead, drag queen Kandi Kane, below, has been asked to do the necessary. In her show Kandi's a neurotic shopaholic from New York - aren't they all - so it seems quite appropriate after all.

AT the opening of Walter Scott's Wandering Willie's Tale (which has nothing to do with Puppetry of the Penis , but Judy Steel instead), the 4am gals were taken by the shy charms of the talented young piper Colin Turnbull. What, we needed to know, was his ambition - the Tattoo? Not a bit of it. Young Colin is a trainee cobbler and he fancies a future making bespoke shoes. "Have you seen the price of a pair of Jimmy Choos?" he asked. It's not often you'll hear a boy from Selkirk saying that.

SIMON Munnery and rubber-clad assistant Andrew Baillie proved real pros at yesterday's performance of Noble Thoughts of a Noble Mind down at The Stand. Realising they were going to over-run and create problems for the next act, San Franciscan juggling comic Fred Anderson, Munnery and Baillie took the obvious course of action. With buckets on head they led the 50-strong audience out of the venue and on to the street to finish the show alfresco.

The good news is that Bob's banter has never been bitchier, our host being joined onstage by the Apple Fresh Dancers - a pair of pert, perma-tanned young things, who dash on and off to add a touch of dynamism to proceedings, while upping the already high cheese factor.
Allan Radcliffe

Assembly Rooms, 226 2428, until Aug 24 (not 12, 19), £12.50-£13.50 (£10.50-£11.50).

Motormouthing his way through the gossip session on the subjects of the 'Minellium', Austin Powers, Americans and the Commonwealth Games, he then engages in a stint of audience participation – and with Downe this means all the way to the dressing room and back. In short, it is a feast of excess in every way, as long as it is camp, outrageous and funny.

An elongated version of Cilla Black with Tom Jones-style singing flourishes and dressed in an Oxfam selection of figure-hugging items, Downe does not shy away from acknowledging his age. He is older than both of his dancers together, he confesses, but at least he has some pearls of wisdom to add to his glittering beads collection. "Be a can man not a can't" is his ultimate message to the approving audience.
Duska Radosavljevic Heaney

And yet, much has changed in those four years. Indeed, much has changed since Downe first painted the town mauve all those years ago. Kitsch from the 1970s has become inextricably woven into the fabric of contemporary culture, a style and industry in itself. People no longer collapse in spasms of mirth at the mere mention of lava lamps and cheesecloth. Unless, that is, you're an Australian.

And while Downe's strangled crooning and terrifyingly enthusiastic frugging can still raise a smile, he seems merely to be mincing through the motions.

The format is ill-considered, his material weak, with far too many extraneous routines from two rent-a-tan dancers.

But just as audiences indulged and continued to adore Garland and Sinatra in their twilight, the crowd love their Bob, still.

Thus, they guffaw heartily at half-cocked bits on 'the Minnellium', Aussie slang and an unforgivably lazy routine based around the fact that, when uttered in an Australian accent, the word 'can't' sounds a bit rude.

What may once have seemed fresh now seems as hackneyed and anachronistic as the figures Downe originally meant to spoof.

The 1970s lounge singer is now a comic archetype, and Australia's No.1 entertainer has been bumped into the wings by the very monster he helped create. Downe and out.
Paul Whitelaw

VENUE AND DETAILS: Assembly Rooms (V3), Music Hall, 20:45 to 22:00 (until Aug 17), 19:15 to 20:30 (until Aug 24), prices vary. Tel: 0131 226 2428.

The Australian with the best hair in town is back! After a four-year break he brings his song-filled speed-queen act back to sunny Edinburgh. And don't think he'd have the cheek to come all that way and not bring a few friends... Enter the Apple Fresh Dancers, straight from the Melbourne school of chiselled cheese: Amber, a bona fide Dannii Minogue lookalike, and go-go boy Ash, whose tan and hips defy almost all the laws of nature.

Downe's show is a retrospective of the intervening years since we last enjoyed his campery, the millennium and 9/11 predictably feature. But it is interesting that almost all the acts I have seen have mentioned another defining moment of the 21st century! Liza Minnelli's wedding. The hideousness of that day is a warning to us all, and Downe, a proponent of all things beautiful and pristine, was bound to be aghast at the melting thunderbirds on display.

A rivalry with the youthful Apple Fresh provides much of the humour as Downe insists they're not the clean-cut bobby-socked kids they appear to be, but 106-year-old crack addicts. Whatever, Bob. You'll know if you're a Downe-er or not before you go, but if you're looking for music, dance, and tight, tight trousers you could do a lot worse.
Marianne Gunn

BOB IS back! Mark Treverrow's utterly fabulous alter ego returns for his twelfth Fringe appearance, in gloriously camp and inimitable style. Australian C-list celeb Bob Downe is a bizarre hybrid of every daytime presenter and light entertainer you can think of, plus Dale Winton, Mike Flower, Olivia Newton-John, Engelbert Humperdinck, and the guys from Style File all in one. The perfectly coiffured Prince of Polyester sparkles as he croons and dances in that very special way.

The capacity audience love every minute, beginning with his flamboyant entrance flanked by the Apple Fresh Dancers, Amber and Ashley, two bronzed beauties from somewhere between 'Home and Away' and a cruise ship. The night's entertainment includes regular song-and-dance reinterpretations of earnest seventies pop and disco, interspersed with Bob-to-audience quality time.

He chats to you with a charming combination of naivety and bitchiness, relating tales of home-town Murwillumbah, Woman's Weekly, and his new part in Neighbours (as Harold Bishop and Mrs Mangel's long lost love-child). Bob Downe is a creature who somehow surpasses parody. He is a sustained tour de force, a comedy creation with a life and universe all of his own. Whiter! Brighter! shines like his sparkling teeth - brilliantly.

thrill: That hair. "They named the Fringe after me."

spill: None. Bob is huge and perfectly formed.
Rebecca Rodgerson

No, look, listen. While it's an absolute thrill to be doing my 12th Fringe, I must confess it's all due to happy coincidence. I've actually been representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games - any excuse to be in Manchester - where I designed the official Aussie uniforms AND competed. Did you see my event? I got a silver in the 100m Run Like a Girl. And if it wasn't for Dale Winton, it would have been another gold for Australia.

Exhausted as I am, it's great to be back in Embra - one of the true cultural capitals of Europe. Where does a visitor start? The shoe stores? The swinging nightlife? (well, CC Blooms, anyhow). Thunderbird One? (Um, that is Thunderbird One towering above the Waverley Centre, isn't it?)

I have such fond memories of my early Fringe days. We used to go up on the train - remember them? The Fringe is named after me, you know, and to think that Graham Norton used to play smaller rooms than me! I'd let the Doug Anthony All Stars start a riot - and then settle the whole thing down again with some Aussie bird calls. And I even met my fiancee there. Do you remember a leggy blonde showgirl named Lily Savage?

There was no radio or TV back then, so you actually played to the audience instead of a couple of producers talking up the back.

Of course, it's all comedy now, isn't it? Comedy, comedy, comedy. Anyone would think Shakespeare had stopped writing plays. As for good old-fashioned variety - well, I'm the last of a dying breed. Me and Gayle Tuesday. Oh yes, and the locals no longer try to run you down in their cars. In fact, I believe the traffic has been signalled to stop on Leith Walk.

But that's enough about you. Let me tell you about my new show, Whiter! Brighter! It's a disco comedy revue that's 100% funnier, and that's a money-back promise. As usual, I'm right on top of youth culture, with songs as cutting edge as ever: 'Kung Fu Fighting', 'Boogie Wonderland', 'Disco Inferno', 'The Greatest Love of All' - all written just for me.

Best of all, I've got dancers! The Apple Fresh Dancers are Amber and Ash and we've been choreographed to perfection by Tony Bartuccio, Australia's Lionel Blair - I knew you'd be impressed.

It's going to be so charming to be in the Music Hall at the Assembly Rooms; so intimate and tiny - only 600 seats. Back home, of course, I'm an industry these days, playing 2,000-seat halls, with my own board games, dolls, swap cards, bubble gum, place mats, a signature Capri - but I must stop, I'm embarrassing you AND me.

On a sombre note, everyone's been asking what happened to Pastel Vespa, my exotic co-star the last time I was here. Well, we were working in the South Pacific, she went shopping, missed the boat and now she's stuck on a Pacific island in some sort of detention centre. It's all a horrible mix-up, she's too glamorous to be a refugee. I send her magazines and soap now and then.

And I do wish people would stop asking me if I've calmed down now that I'm a Fringe veteran. All I can say is there's no armchair in the act just yet, nor are there any brandy balloons or cigars. But I have written to Nicholas Parsons and asked for any old cravats!
Bob Downe

Bob Downe: Whiter! Brighter!, Assembly Rooms Music Hall (Venue 3), (0131-226 2428), until August 17, 8.45pm; until August 24, 7.15pm

As Big Brother what won't you tolerate from housemates?

Bob: Any kind of bickering that's boring. Bitch fights and catty banter will be encouraged, even rewarded. As for actual violence, if they don't know the gentlemanly rules of boxing, then Murwillumbah High School behind-the-bike-shed biffo will do.

Big Brother's usually a person of few words. How do you think you'll be able to handle that?

Bob: Perfectly, thanks. Just what are you insinuating?

What about if someone does a Turkan and wants desperately to leave?

Bob: I'll say, "There's the door, darling. Go back to your minor-celebrity existence!"

Do you think your voice is deep enough for the job?

Bob: Now really, this is getting insulting. Everyone's terrified of Alan Jones, aren't they?

Thanks to Kara for this article.

The event is being hosted by Boothby Graffoe.

Other comedians lined-up for the four days include Dave Fulton, Jimeoin and Ricky Grover.

The first weekend of Best Of The Fest takes place at the Assembly Rooms between August 8 - 11.

You can buy TexTickets for Best Of The Fest performances from August 8-11 by texting "Tickets To Best Of The Fest" to 7467 on your Orange phone.

In this exclusive interview, Bob gives us an indication of what he has in store for the celebrities.

BB - In the last series, Big Brother was a bit more tough and disciplinary with the housemates. What sort of Big Brother will you be?

Bob - I plan to be firm but fair... except in the case of celebrities I have always hated. I am going to be particularly cruel to them.

BB - What sort of discipline will you be handing out?

Bob - I see a lot of running around the garden, I see a lot of unnecessary push-ups, I see a lot of getting leaves out of the pool, I see a lot of hand washing other people's smalls.

BB - Australians are used to their Big Brother having a deep, authoritarian voice. Will you be changing your dulcet tones to assume the role?

Bob - I have a very beautiful, very basso profundo voice. My mother always said I had a wonderful masculine voice. So I don't know what you are driving at there.

BB - Were you included in the selection process for Celebrity Big Brother?

Bob - Well, originally I was, but we couldn't get above three that I was happy with. So I was removed from the selection process. And I think you will see the results of that, quite frankly.

BB - Are you a bit of a voyeur?

Bob - I love to watch, particularly through one-way glass.

BB - Will the celebrity housemates be getting Bollinger instead of the usual home brew?

Bob - No, they will be getting Passion Pop, because that's all they deserve.

BB - Where in the house do you think we will see the most action? The kitchen, the spa?

Bob - The purple pit of passion, of course.

BB - What tasks and challenges have you got in store for the celebrities?

Bob - Things they haven't done for years: like cleaning the house, vacuuming, washing some dishes. And I don't mean loading up a dishwasher, I mean WASHING some dishes! I'm quite looking forward to them remembering that they are human beings.

BB - You don't seem like the type who would be happy to stay behind the scenes. Will you be able to refrain from bursting in?

Bob - It's going to be very hard not to burst through the wall at certain times. But we have agreed that I will need to be strapped down.

The cheesy lounge singer, the creation of Australian comic Mark Trevorrow, hits the road after a comeback stint at the Edinburgh fringe.

His tour, called Bob Downe: Brighter, Whiter, culminates with five dates at London' Bloomsbury Theatre.

These are his first UK appearances in three years.

A full list of dates is available at his official website.

There will be eight celebrity housemates, but Big Brother would not confirm or deny any of the rumoured names. And there will be a series of evictions and nominations over the three weeks that the show runs for. And rest assured these housemates will not be given any cushy celeb privilages. Bob Downe assures us he will be a fair Big Brother, except for the housemates he doesn't like. And don't expect them to get Moet, according to Bob Downe it's Passion Pop all the way.

Celebrity Big Brother is also a serious charity fundraiser. The winning celebrity does not take home a large sum of cash instead, money raised from telephone voting and auctions of the challenge/ task items will go to the Starlight Foundation.

Celebrity Big Brother goes to air on Sunday July 21st. The housemates will be entering the house on July 20th when there will be a big opening ceremony show and you are invited. If you are around on the Saturday night and turn up to Dreamworld you can witness the housemates enter the house. You will also be invited to buy tickets to a huge closing ceremony. Stay posted for more details.

Tell us who you think should be appearing on Celebrity Big Brother in the forums. Or vote in our poll to have your say in what the celebrity housemates will miss most in the house in this poll.

Don't forget to keep your eyes on the BB website for the latest news as it happens.

For years funnyman Mark Trevorrow has commuted between New York, Sydney, London and Melbourne, going wherever the demand for his high-camp, highly arch wit has taken him.

Sydney's prohibitive house prices made the decision to buy in his home town of Melbourne an easy one.

"It doesn't matter which city you live in," says Trevorrow, "For the money that this house cost I could only have got an apartment in Sydney."

And an apartment would not have fulfilled the strong homing instinct that drew him to a rose-covered terrace in North Fitzroy, which he shares with his old school friend Dean.

"Because I'm away so much I wanted a person to come home to." he explains. "You hit 40 and then you want your own garden and your own house.

"Since I left home in 1978 I have always lived in flats. There are fewer neighbours in a house. "And neighbours are important to Trevorrow, as is the whole neighbourhood, which he loves. "It's a red-wine drinking, left wing, green, bolshie old '70s radical bolt hole. There's a smattering of the original migrant people who moved in after the war and the original working class. My neighbour has lived here since 1937. I love that kind of mixture."

Better still, it's on the right side of town to get to the airport. This helps given that Trevorrow has a pretty busy schedule. He flies to Sydney at least once every two weeks to tape voice-overs for the animated comedy Quads, which screens on SBS, and he visits New York at least three or four times a year.

For may years London was his base, but he never strayed from home for long. "I'm a strong believer that if you're a comedian, and a topical comedian, you mustn't break the thread with your home audience. I've never stayed away for more than three or four months."

But there's a price to pay for that kind of commitment. And in Trevorrow's case it has meant living out of a suitcase for 20 years, while keeping the majority of his possessions in storage or split between multiple homes.

"Getting all my books and CDs home from London was a major drama," he recalls. "This is the first time I have had all my things in one place since I was about 20. I'm an archivist and I never throw anything out so it was quite intense, quite emotional, going through books and letters."

For the first time in his life Trevorrow has had a reason to buy some furniture, scouring Melbourne's Chapel St Bazaar for interesting pieces.

"It's only in the last three or four years that the money has been there for me to afford furniture. It's lovely to chuck out the Ikea. But I'm not very materialistic - things have to have real meaning. I'm not interested unless they have history."

A friend helped him find many of the choice retro pieces that he's gradually collecting, among them a couple of '50s swivel chairs by the designer of The Jetson's furniture. the artwork is very personal, significant because it has been done by friends or given by friends.

Perhaps the most vital acquisition has been a wide-screen TV and DVD player, where he can indulge his love of watching rare documentaries and classic films. As we talk, on screen is Trevorrow in his latest incarnation, a butch Bob wearing a denim suit and white shoes (naturally) and belting out Pretty Woman.

Recently, Cold August Night, a sly send-up of rock and roll shows of the '70s and '80s has kept him on the road constantly, with only the occasional respite at home.

It was Trevorrow's first major tour in two years and he says his 40-something body felt the punishing schedule of all the costume changes and physically demanding performances. But at the end of this month he'll take his reward with four-week's holiday in San Francisco before heading for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He's also booked for a tour of the United Kingdom with his Whiter Brighter Show and a two-month London season.

There's little chance that those suitcases of his will stay still long enough to gather any dust
Jenny Wills

Barbecues are usually a family affair for Sydney's favourite crooner, especially when he's visiting his mum, Ida Downe, at the caravan park where she lives in Murwillumbah.

"Mum and I like to cook tinned things on the barbie, because as Mum says, the tins keep in the freshness and they stack well," said Downe, seemingly unaware of the danger this presents for himself and anyone nearby.

"I like to cook baked beans on the barbie. I tip the can of beans on to the barbie plate and keep them in with a sandbag wall of pineapple chunks.

"Our other favourite barbecue food is Spam - that way we can choose the thickness," he said.

Although Downe barbecues are celebrated among the family members for their eclectic variety of food choices, Ida prefers to keep her recipe secrets to herself.

"Mum can also make a pavlova on the barbecue - you've really got to see it to believe it," he said.

"But she doesn't like to give much away when it comes to her cooking skills."

The Downe secrecy also extends to the type of barbecue they use for family occasions.

"OK, it's one of those public ones, where you put a 20¢ piece in the slot," Downe confided.

"But Mum likes to jam the slot with a fork, so we get it for free.

"She hasn't told anybody else in the caravan park about that."

While he is at his most relaxed with his mum in Murwillumbah, Downe spends much of his time in Sydney - where he performs his pop and rock extravaganzas.

Away from the heady glamour of his stage shows, he is often tempted to fire up a sausage sizzle on the balcony of his flat in Surry Hills - but has to battle the constraints of high-rise living.

"It's hard to have a barbecue on the balcony of a flat in Surry Hills, although I'd love it," he said.

"I might try it one day, but I can only imagine what the neighbours might think."

But he continues to put aside 20¢ pieces for his next visit to the caravan park in Murwillumbah.
Christine Sams

Trevorrow is friendly but highly strung from the moment I enter, barking on the mobile to agents theatrical and taxing, before he turns "the fucking thing" off and sits down. The next 20 minutes fly by like a speed-drenched hallucination, with flashes of Downe's smile and lots of Trevorrow's passion for community issues. He offers me red cordial, and we both drink as he talks, first of all about the new show Cold August Night, Bob's first foray into rock'n'roll.

"I've always intended to do rock'n'roll music as Bob, but you can't do rock unless you've got a band," says Trevorrow, deadpan. "You can do disco, cabaret, jazz, you can do all kinds of other music to backing tapes, but … rock'n'roll has to be live, that's the point of rock'n'roll."

I'm waiting for something to creep into the conversation – a smirk, the sugary suggestion of sarcasm – but there's nothing there. Bob Downe and rock'n'roll.

"People have always got the act wrong. They always say, ‘Oh, he does these terrible old songs.' I don't do terrible old songs. I only do the songs that I've always loved. The songs which succeed for me most are the songs that I danced to as a young man or danced around the lounge room as a school kid.

"I do them funny, obviously," says Trevorrow, as I expel a sigh of relief. "You do them for laughs, but you don't violate them. I'm trying to walk that line. Make them great …"

That the songlist includes such dubious classics as Reet Petite and Footloose is of no concern to Trevorrow. He loves them, and claims he is no fan of Mike Flowers or Frank Bennett, and seriously considers their lounging down of rock songs objectionable.

"I do not violate the song. Songs are written in an idiom, you don't twist and turn them until they're inside out and unrecognisable … When we do Radar Love and when we do The Joker … we are making them more rock'n'roll than they were to start with …"

There's a break for a moment, as Trevorrow shows me a video of his recent solo performance in New York. Even given the deadened visage that is the "videoed performance" is not enough to conceal his obvious success with the crowd. Bob Downe is such an endearing creation, a profoundly optimistic goon, as proud of his sexuality as he is of his fictional Queensland mother, Ida. Trevorrow, still buzzing, switches off the video and turns to face me.

"That's my proof. You know how queens always go, ‘How was New York?' as if to say, ‘Did it really go that well?' and then you want to say, ‘Yes, it fuckin' did, actually!' You know what I mean – like queens! They're the ones who give me the hardest time! What a cracker!" he cries.

He doesn't find a lot of solidarity within the community then?

"No! It's the opposite! Everybody's climbing over each other's back, clawing over each other's backs using icepicks. Terrible, isn't it?

"In all other downtrodden subcultures, they're [also] all very brutal to each other. We have to recognise that and we have to really look at ourselves. You have to try to overcome that shit …" demands Trevorrow.

"One of the main ways it manifests and it really upsets me and I always have arguments with people, is every fucking year this ‘I'm not going to Mardi Gras, Mardi Gras is fucked, the party's fucked.' It's like fuck off! Go and live in Adelaide! Go and live in a city where it doesn't have the world's greatest gay and lesbian arts festival and parade and party. Fuck off! Just fuck off if you don't like it! And if you don't like it, fucking get off your arse and join the fucking committee yourself if you want to change things. Just stop fucking moaning about it! Don't get me started!"

It's too late. Trevorrow is absolutely adamant that we talk about these issues. "Why the fuck not?" he asks, qualifying that he would never be so critical of the gay community with the straight press. Being an openly gay celebrity is something Trevorrow takes very seriously, he wants discussion between ourselves, but is not about to trash a community he also clearly embraces.

"One of the nicest things that happens to me is that queens come up to me and thank me for everything [I] do for our community. And what I think they mean by that is that I present a powerful role model or a powerful image of a gay man who's out, in showbusiness, on television, in the straight media … Fully prepared to hang his rainbow flag from the balcony of life …

"What fascinates me is that if people care not to see it, they don't see it … One of the things that astonishes me is that there's this genuine rumour around the country – young people come up to me all the time – if I'm really gay or not. They've heard this rumour that I'm married with children. Well, I mean, I don't know how many cocks you've gotta suck! It's just hilarious!"

Mark tells me how much he admires George Michael for "not retreating into some sort of shame cave" and there's a brief discussion about our shared admiration for the sex spaces at the Mardi Gras dance parties. I'm imagining Bob Downe meeting Mark Trevorrow in the Murwillumbah RSL, and Mark hitting on Bob with a filthy frankness. Trevorrow is absolutely shameless.

"There's so few people prepared to be out and gay in our culture," says Trevorrow. "What is it – me, Michael Kirby and fucking Johnnie Cass! Jesus Christ – Ian Roberts! …

"So many well-known people, who ‘shall remain nameless' because we all know who they are, are too fucking chickenshit to come out, because they've got some idea that it's gonna affect their career!" Trevorrow gasps, incredulous.

"What sort of fucking career do you want if it's not based on honesty and truth? How much do you want that fucking BMW and the apartment at Walsh Bay? It really makes me angry … You carry the can … and then people don't believe that you're really gay! I can't figure it out."

There's a final message for punters, and Mark Trevorrow is adamant.

"I want queens to get off their arses and actually book to see it, instead of waiting until they can't get in on the Friday and Saturday and there were heaps of seats available Wednesday and Thursday. I do not want that happening!" He actually picks up the Dictaphone at this point and shouts into it.

"Hear me, Oxford Street! It's Bob's cry to Oxford Street! Bob's plea. Please buy tickets to the Wednesday and Thursday shows – don't leave it until you can't get in."

There's a break for breath, before what I'm sure is a Bob Downe cheeky smile grows on Mark's face.

"Late gay Lanas," he smiles, like a disappointed den mother. "What a bunch of last minute Lanas. Not on!"

Cold August Night runs from 1 to 4 May at the State Theatre, Market Street, Sydney at 8pm. Phone Ticketmaster7 on 136 100 for bookings or visit www.ticketmaster7.com. Tickets range from $32.90 to $36.90.
Tim Benzie

With the Melbourne Town Hall's stage looking like a set from the Countdown era, one knows that the night is going to be wildly retro. Bob Downe's new show, Cold August Night, never hits freezing point. In fact, the energy levels are so high that the show almost sizzles from the heat.

Coupled with his band - the X-Rentals - Downe moves through the gamut of popular song styles from rock to disco, and, as he rightly confesses, he is a "one-man Gold-FM".

As well as possessing a great voice, Downe also has the ability to move at the speed of light across the stage. His style of dancing could be best described as a theme and variation on the mince.

He marches, prances, shuffles, taps, gyrates and arabesques with the finesse of a Solid Gold dancer. Added to his vocal, choreographic and comedic prowess, Downe - a man with a true sense of fashion - proudly promotes his vinyl outfits, and they superbly complement the show's "tasteful" ambience.

The show also supports the talents of Jane Markey who plays Spud the Roadie, Big Patti the security guard, Soleil Moon Frye the singer, and as the leading man's mother, Ida Downe.

In centre place, high above the stage, there is a sign with the simple message: "Bob Rocks." It is no lie.
Joel Crotty

There was something familiar about the tall, thin man in black crooning Noel Coward at the Black Cat Cabaret in Melbourne's Fitzroy last summer. He cut a self-consciously glamorous figure propped against the bar, telling wry anecdotes about gay life in Melbourne, London, New York. He liked telling the crowd about the night Noel Coward cruised a friend of his at a swell party some time in the 1960s, only to reject him at the last minute. "Oh," said Coward, "from across the room you looked much younger."

Only when Mark Trevorrow laughs does the penny drop. It's the same megawatt cheesy grin sported by his alter ego, the Prince of Polyester, Bob Downe. "I hope Bob doesn't show up," says Trevorrow. "He'll only ignore the show and talk to Bernard King all night." Most of the audience laughs, but some look confused. An elegant French woman asks Trevorrow a little later, "Oo is this Bob?"

Oo indeed. In an alternate universe where variety shows are still top-rating television, Mark Trevorrow is Bob Downe, the host of the entirely fictional Good Morning Murwillumbah. Although he comes across like the idiot child of Edna Everage and Graham Kennedy, Downe was created in 1984 as a mock American co-host in a send-up of Entertainment Tonight. In January 1987, he appeared solo for the first time at the Harold Park Hotel, then the centre of Sydney comedy, in a wig borrowed from a 1960s mime act and the polyester suit Trevorrow once wore as a copy boy on the Melbourne Sun. By 1988, he was doing the Edinburgh Festival and by 1990, he'd moved to London with aims of conquering British television. Although Bob Downe hosted three UK TV specials and even met the Queen at a Royal Variety Show, he never quite hit the same levels of fame as his friend and occasional singing partner Julian Clary.

When Bob Downe returned to Australia three years ago as the host of the Mardi Gras parade telecast, the plastic man let his ambitions show through the glitzy patter. "I'll get my bloody picture in the Channel 10 foyer if it kills me," he told an interviewer from the gay street press. Although the confirmed bachelor occasionally introduced a new lady love, such as last year's girlfriend Pastel Vespa, his closeted sexuality was becoming increasingly obvious - in his stage wear, his single entendres, and the way he kissed Sir Ian McKellen during last year's Mardi Gras telecast.

But if anything, the Ken doll of comedy has become more popular with the mum-and-dad audiences. On the opening night of the 2000 Olympics, Downe hosted the torch-welcoming concert before a crowd of 60,000. He did a season of his own variety show on cable TV channel TV1. He has released three CDs, written a book, All Bob Downe!, been nominated for an ARIA and won a Green Room Award for best cabaret artiste. He's just embarked on his 15th tour, a rock concert called Cold August Night, hitting theatres in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Then he's taking the act to New York, Edinburgh and London. Right now, he's doing the station promotions for Channel 10 and pitching a movie about his life. Bob Downe is almost as famous as he thinks he is.

But meanwhile, after much nagging from friends, Mark Trevorrow has finally stepped out from behind the wig to start performing as himself. "I'm much more nervous about how I appear as me on television or when I go out than with Bob," says Trevorrow, "because when you're with Bob, the more ridiculous you look, the funnier it is. It's quite confronting to see yourself on TV as you are. But once you get over that vanity thing - 'How do I look, how do I look?' - it's fine."

Is there a "downe" side to spending half your life in another man's wig? Trevorrow says no, he's never resented Bob. "He's my clown. Like all comic creations, he gives me a licence to be stupid. He's meaner than me, in a childish way. He gets to be bitchy, all the things we're not supposed to be. It's fabulous." However, Trevorrow does plan to give Bob Downe a rest after this tour. "From now on, Bob will only tour every two years, and then every three," he says. "It gets to a point where you have to do that to keep it fresh." He's going to develop the "Mark act", take it on the road, and do more writing for and acting in other people's shows.

Bob sings the songs from Mark's childhood. "A lot of performers who do the retro thing think it's really funny to sing the bad songs from the era, but I don't. I do all the songs we thought were great." However, the Mark show material is a little more grown-up - be they melancholic classics by Noel Coward or newer numbers such as Rufus Wainwright's wry Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk. But there are similarities between the acts. "There will always be an intrinsically camp, histrionic way I deliver a song. In that sense, I'll never make a straight album."

Trevorrow has always been theatrical. "I was a queeny little kid," he says. "A total drama queen. The highs were super high, the lows were super low. There is a personality type. Everyone knows somebody who has a kid who is a tomboy girl or a queeny little boy. That doesn't always mean their sexuality will go in that direction - but it usually does."

Trevorrow was the third boy in a family of four raised by conservative Methodist school-teacher Alan and his wife, Dorothy. While brothers Andrew and John were sporty lads who loved Saturday football, Mark spent his childhood switched on to soap operas, Andy Hardy movies and The Don Lane Show. He used to lip-synch to an old 78 of That Old Black Magic, and recorded radio shows with the kids from the next street on their reel-to-reel tape player. At night, he would teach the songs he learned at primary school to his sister, Claire, two years younger and with whom he shared a bedroom. If she didn't get the words right, remembers Claire, Mark would get out of bed and hit her.

"Even then, Mark was a bit of a perfectionist," says Claire, now a social worker. "Always obsessed with the sound effects and the music, getting that right. Very focused on the end product."

Says Trevorrow, "Claire is Bob's number-one fan, the one who understands the act best because she was there at the beginning."

Responds Claire, "There's a lot of Mark in Bob and a lot of Bob in Mark. Bob is Mark with the ridiculous meter cranked up." The fundamental difference, says Claire, is that