| Mark Richard Trevorrow was born on 4 February 1959 at around 11.00am. He is the second youngest of 4 children born to a builder turned teacher and a housewife in the Melbourne suburb, Murrumbeena. His initial foray into entertaining began during his childhood when he would restage musicals in the house along with his younger sister and a couple of neighbours. He took to the stage whilst in Form 1A at Murrumbeena High School playing Gad in a 1971 production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. |  Murrumbeena Kindy |
| Mark's chosen profession though was journalism and he started making his own newspapers at the age of 10 and progressed to being editor of the school newspaper. |
 Photo by Max Phipps |
In 1977, aged 17, Mark joined the Melbourne Sun News-Pictorial as a Copyboy. His 4-year apprenticeship included a year as a daily Pop Columnist. A visit to The Rocky Horror Show in Melbourne in 1977 seemed to awaken Mark's need to perform. He worked behind the scenes writing link scripts on TV10's nightly magazine show Together Tonight during its 6-month run but it wouldn't be long before he appeared in front of the cameras. |
| In 1980 Mark formed the group Gloria and The Go Go's, later to re-form as the GLOBOS, with Wendy de Waal and colleagues on the paper. Initially the 60's revival cabaret group played just for friends but soon became a regular highlight on Melbourne's cabaret circuit. Two years later, Mark left journalism when the GLOBOS turned professional and scored a national No. 1 hit with their first single, Tintarella di Luna!. In 1983 their second and final single release, The Beat Goes On, reached No. 3 in the national charts. In the same year the group opened for Cliff Richard, during his national tour entitled Gold. |
| When the GLOBOS disbanded, Mark returned briefly to journalism as Staff Writer, then freelance Arts Editor, of Vogue Australia. This memorable year, 1984, also saw the creation of Bob Downe. The character evolved from a double-act sketch with friend Cathy Armstrong. The duo's work included sketches for ABC Radio's Comedy Unit and their 1985 cabaret show A Nice Young Couple in Sydney, which also played the Adelaide Fringe the following year. The GLOBOS reformed for 6 months giving Mark his first opportunity to perform at the 1986 Sydney Mardi Gras. Later, in January 1987, Mark went solo at the Harold Park Hotel in Sydney and was nominated 'Best New Solo Performer' at the Melbourne Comedy Festival while continuing to work at Vogue. This was followed by headlining seasons at Melbourne's Last Laugh theatre-restaurant culminating with Pick A Hit, a musical game show cabaret, co-written by Mark with Gina Riley and Glenn Butcher. This show played at the Last Laugh for six months in 1988-89 and was the second longest running show ever at the legendary comedy venue. |
| Mark debuted Bob at the 1988 Edinburgh Fringe, the largest arts festival in the world, playing in the Fringe Club wine bar. He quickly established a cult following and over the ensuing years he has returned to Edinburgh playing to larger audiences on each occasion. In 1992 he won the Glasgow Mayfest award, no mean feat since Glasgow audiences are reputed to be the hardest to play. |
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| Mark released his first Bob CD single, Yeh Yeh, in Australia in 1994 followed in 1996 with his first studio album, Bob Downe - Greatest Hits. The latter contained a collection of classic songs that had featured in his stage shows, including a duet with good friend Julian Clary. A year later a 'live' album, Jazzy!, was released, which was nominated for 'Best Australian Comedy Release' at the ARIA Awards. |
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| Dividing time between Australia and the UK, Mark continued to bring Bob to the masses with increasingly successful tours. There were a host of UK TV appearances in the '90s including Bob's own shows, Bob Downe Under (LWT 1994), The Bob Downe Special, (ITV 1996), Bob Downe All Over Britain (UKPlay 1998). Mark also co-wrote Camp Christmas, the first lesbian and gay Christmas TV show and appeared before the Queen as Bob on The Royal Variety Performance (ITV 1995). Back in Australia, Mark was actively sought by Channel Ten to provide the commentary for the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and did so, under the guise of Bob, for 4 years, producing a surge in the TV ratings. |
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| Mark's first book, detailing the life of his alter ego, and titled All Bob Downe! was published in 1998. Another first that year was Mark's appearance as himself in the Edinburgh Fringe's Comedy Debate opposing the topic You Must Sin To Win . The following year he took part in the Sydney Mardi Gras Comedy Debate, It's Better To Be Bent Than Straight. On both occasions he was on the winning team. There have also been several appearances on the immensely popular Good News Week TV programmes, on Channel Ten. Bob got his own chat show, The Bob Downe Show on cable channel TV1 in 2000, which kept Mark busy for several months. |
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In April 2001, Mark realised a dream when he performed three showcase gigs in New York. At the end of the year and in response to repeated requests over the years, Mark finally debuted as himself doing cabaret shows at The Black Cat Cabaret Bar in his home town of Melbourne. "At last, a chance to look nice and sing nicely." - Mark Trevorrow 2001. |
| In 2002, showing his support for the gay community, Mark agreed to become an honorary patron of P-FLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians And Gays), whom he described as, "Unsung heroes". Back in the showbiz world, another dream came to fruition when Mark was able to perform his new Bob concert show, Cold August Night on the hallowed stage of the State Theatre in Sydney. Later that year and after a break of 4 years, Mark brought Bob back to the Edinburgh Fringe with Whiter! Brighter! A short but triumphant tour of the UK followed. | 
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| Back in Australia, Mark landed the part of Daryl Lee in the first series of Kath & Kim and has returned in subsequent series of the award winning show. Mark's TV debut in a 'straight' role, as host of The Way We Were: Frank Sinatra In Australia, a documentary/variety special on Ol' Blue Eyes, was screened on the ABC late in 2002 to great acclaim. |
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| June 2003 saw Mark open at The Studio, within the Sydney Opera House, with his first major run of cabaret shows as himself. The song set covered pop, standards, jazz and show tunes. 2004 saw the release of Mark's first album as himself, appropriately named, It's About Time. On TV he presented a further series of ten programmes of The Way We Were. 2005 was a momentous year as Mark celebrated Bob's 21st birthday with an up to the minute show, iBob. There were more TV appearances the following year when Mark teamed up once again with Fiona Thorn and Bob and Pastel presented Karaoke Dokey. |
| Mark and Bob dominated the 2007 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras with many appearances including the Launch, The Great Debate and the Parade. Several corporate gigs kept Mark busy until August when he brought Live & Swingin' to Edinburgh performing in the magnificent Spiegeltent where it was standing room only. Two dates at the Bloomsbury Theatre in London followed before Mark returned to Australia to tour with Denise Drysdale in Ding Dong Downe until Christmas. |
| On radio, Mark has presented a number of programmes for the ABC. In film, he has had cameos as Bob in DAAS The Edinburgh Years in 1991 and Mr Accident ten years later. In 2008 Mark played Governor Lachlan Macquarie in A Chair With A View, a seven-minute period comedy, which beat 600 other entrants to win the Mudfest short film festival in Mudgee. |
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Compiled from various articles.
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Transcript from an interview for the TV show Funny Business 21/12/96
Interviewer: Bob Downe, the wig wearing, Prince of Polyester is about to be unleashed on primetime TV with his own ITV variety special this Christmas. We've come along to meet the man behind the safari suit, Australian comedian Mark Trevorrow.
Interviewer: Mark.
Mark: Yes.
Interviewer: You are Bob Downe?
Mark: I am.
Interviewer: I didn't recognise you when you walked in.
Mark: Well, I couldn't... I just couldn't be bothered frockin' up. I don't like doing it before about 6 o'clock.
Interviewer: Really?
Mark: I thought I'd let you see what, you know, what's underneath.
Interviewer: The man behind... Well, yeh because I was a bit worried...
Mark: Is it horrific? Are you upset?
Interviewer: No. No. It's very nice actually, very pleasant. I was worried about the glare off that wig.
Mark: We're late getting going aren't we because I'm so vain as myself. I had to check my hair was all right. You wouldn't care less if I was Bob.
Interviewer: So where did Bob Downe come from?
Mark: Oh God... well he's um... Bob's really something I've done since I was a little kid. 'Cos right from a very small age I was obsessed with kinda TV variety, light entertainment, of which we had an enormous amount in Melbourne when I was a kid so we had all these local daytime magazine shows and nighttime variety shows and they were very, well when you look at old tapes of them now and they're hilariously bad. I mean Bob Downe is not very much of an exaggeration, believe it or not, to what Australian telly was like in the 50's and 60's and 70's. As for the kids, me and my kid sister particularly, and the two kids who lived round the corner, we were just obsessed with these shows and we used to put on shows and then when we got tape recorders in the late 60's you know we started making our own shows on tape.
Interviewer: So when did he make his first appearance in public?
Mark: Well what happened was I had a... when I first started performing I was a journalist, a young journo in Melbourne. I was there for about 5 years and while I was there we decided we'd put on a cabaret show, me and my mates, and we did this thing where we'd lip-synch old records and my character really... even in that group which we then became, we started doing other people's parties then we became professional and then I left journalism and we scored a record deal and had a couple of hit records of our own, which we would then lip-synch along with everything else and ah that character that I did in the GLOBOS, that was the name of the group, um was very much like a junior Bob really. In fact I walked on stage as Bob solo 10 years ago in January.
Interviewer: Blimey.
Mark: Yeh.
Interviewer: Was the outfit, and the hair and everything, was that like right from the start you knew that was how it was going to look?
Mark: Mmm it was. The reason why the wig happened in the first place was that at that time, it was a long time ago, it was about '84 I think, and I was wearing my hair long, I had really long... it was that sort of post um... blitz post um...
Interviewer: New Romantic.
Mark: New Romantic, it was where you had... it was short at the side, it was beautiful, (cheeky grin to camera) and I've destroyed all pictorial evidence of this. It was a bit short at the side but sort of you know and then like...
Interviewer: Flock of seagulls.
Mark: Can you imagine? What a twat. And ah... and that's... and the thing is because I was wearing... I wanted to look very like a bland 70's American TV presenter. I had... I couldn't do it with the hair so the hair all had to go piled up and then I had this wig that was left, one of the girls wigs, that was left over from the GLOBOS, 'cos there were 4 girls and 2 blokes in the GLOBOS, and it was one of these wigs and it was actually... it combed down quite into sort of... quite a sort of a... a... and that's the wig I still use to this very day.
Interviewer: You've just got the one wig?
Mark: It's the one wig, yes.
Interviewer: So I guess once the wig was on the safari suit just...
Mark: Well not to... the safari suit wasn't the first thing. My first thing was a beige, fawn suit. It was a poly-cotton sort of suit and it was my suit when I was a trainee journalist.
Interviewer: That's disgusting.
Mark: That is. I'm disclosing far too much now. You're just bringing it out of me. Uh... but what happened was, when I first started doing the character solo there was just... it... it just worked straight away. People responded to the character so strongly right from the start. It wasn't that long before I was doing TV spots as the character and... and then costumes started to arrive. People started sending me stuff and the safari suit was sent to me anonymously in a jiffy post bag.
Interviewer: I'm not surprised.
Mark: Exactly. No return address. Ah... and it turned... it took me a long time, it took me over a year before I found out that it was the wardrobe girls from Neighbours.
Interviewer: Really?
Mark: Isn't that fantastic?
Interviewer: Well tell us a little bit about your Christmas Special anyway.
Mark: Oh it's great. It's um... it's sort of a special I always wanted to make. It's very rare that you get a chance to do exactly what you would love to do and ah... and I got a 13 piece band, led by Laurie Holloway, who worked with Judy Garland. Judy Garland. To some of us that's quite impressive and ah he's wonderful... wonderful as I mean he's the number one isn't he? The best ah... so that's the great 13 piece band. 6 dancers. Brian Rogers dancers.
Interviewer: Are they the Brian Rogers dancers?
Mark: Yeh, but they're called the Bob Downe dancers on my special. 3 backing singers and then guests. Well I... I just wanted to do... I wanted to do a special which recreated the sort of specials like the Ann Margaret show and all those Barbra Streisand specials and the Judy show in the 60's which were done on these big, massive, infinity sets which went on forever. You couldn't see where they stopped and they would... and then suddenly fabulous people would make surprise appearances and they'd do... have a chat together and... and do a big song and dance and that's what we've done and it's like we've got Ant & Dec, we've got uh Anthony Newley.
Interviewer: What was he like?
Mark: He was fantastic. What a star he is.
Interviewer: Did you do What Kind Of Fool Am I?
Mark: He did and we do The Candy Man together.
Interviewer: Wow.
Mark: He's just wow. He's, seriously, he's a star and um and... and Martine McCutcheon, Tiffany from Eastenders.
Interviewer: Oh yeh, what's she like?
Mark: Gorgeous, because she comes from a song and dance background as well.
Interviewer: You do a little bit of your Australian TV show don't you?
Mark: Yeh well that's right 'cos Bob has an imaginary TV show. IMAGINARY, everybody thinks it's real, called Good Morning Murwillumbah. That's where Bob comes from. He comes from a country town on the North coast of New South Wales called Murwillumbah, which I've never been to.
Interviewer: Oh, it doesn't exist then?
Mark: It does exist. It's a very, very boring little eh... farming centre.
Interviewer: So what's in the future for Bob
Mark: Oh... gosh... ah...
Interviewer: Up to Christmas?
Mark: Yeh, well let's... let's... oh I'm off to Australia.
Interviewer: Oh you are?
Mark: By the time this goes out I'll be... I'll be sunning myself on Bondi Beach but I'll be under a great big blanket trying to keep my London tan. Em, I'll be working out in Australia for the Summer, the Aussie Summer and ah... and then hope... coming back, I don't know, maybe around March, I guess. Start touring again, hopefully a series...
Interviewer: Edinburgh again?
Mark: Edinburgh again. Series, perhaps, maybe? (crosses fingers to camera.)
 Self photograph taken by Mark Trevorrow 25/09/98 |