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Bob Downe.
 The man in the synthetic safari suit turns twenty one this year and by way of celebration, brings his latest show to the Adelaide Cabaret Festival for two performances only after dates in Sydney and at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. Last year the man behind Bob Downe (Mark Trevorrow) released an album for Sony - 'It's About Time' - which would have been equally at home at the Festival, perhaps even more so... during an informal chat with Trevorrow, I asked for his definition of cabaret and his choice to bring Bob to the event rather than Mark.
"Bob's cabaret too! In fact he's highly appropriate for the Cabaret Festival because he's a response to the great cabaret artists I'd seen and admired as a kid - Shirley Bassey, Peter Allen and Liza. So he's very much a cabaret creature. This was during the 'seventies - a time when rock was really influenced by cabaret, from Bowie to Neil Diamond's 'Hot August Night'. That's why a lot of the songs Bob does are more cabaret - like I Will Survive. When I think about it a lot of the stuff is more cabaret than rock and pop in the Vegas sort of way. Vegas, of course, is the world's longest running cabaret.
"My definition of cabaret as opposed to theatre is when there's a genuine interaction between the audience and the performer. I think we [Bob and I] both do that in the sense that there's genuine dialogue between us and the audience to the point that I actually say things to the audience and they respond in a fun and lighthearted way. And that's the last thing that would happen in the theatre. Cabaret is an extremely large net. There are so many styles - from the deadly serious political stuff right through to the deadly ridiculous. I think I'm from the deadly ridiculous end of the spectrum."
Asking Trevorrow whether he has anything planned in the way of family celebrations for his twenty-first with his parents Neale and Ida, he confides that "Bob celebrates very much by getting away and going on tour," and that he "still lives with his mum, Nanna and Aunty Bev, so the celebration is when Bob finally gets on the coach and actually leaves for five or six weeks. And between you and I, the family is very happy to see him go. They think he's a big showoff and quite frankly his mum's too busy making sure the urn's full, organising the chairs for the CWA and doing lamington drives ... They'll do a 21st birthday cake but they don't think he's special and that's what it'll say on the cake's icing."
'iBob' will take the form of a retrospective, Trevorrow opines. "It's an anniversary show that deconstructs and sends up anniversary specials. So there are kind of code messages. Congratulations from Bert and Rove. I'm being sort of tight lipped about it but it sends it up. It's basically an excuse to go back through some of the old stuff and a bit of the new with a video element in between and the iPod thing holds it all together because Bob's sort of like a human jukebox. He's the original mp3 player. And I've got a lovely guest too - Amelia from "Australian Idol' which I thought was very appropriate. She's a hometown girl." Audiences can expect 'a madly eclectic bunch of songs'.
Upon mentioning that Jane Birkin would be in town for the festival, I reminded Trevorrow about the recording that Bob had made with Julian Clary of Je t'aime ... moi non plus of the Gainsbourg / Birkin classic and he explained its genesis.
"Well Julian's been an old mate of mine for years and years and he was in Sydney touring at the time that I was recording my first Bob Downe album and I'd thought it could be very, very funny for Bob to do a version of Je t'aime and I'd been wanting to do it for years And I suddenly thought "I'll get Julian to do the Serge Gainsbourg part". A friend of ours, Maurice, who's a professor of French at New South Wales Uni did the translation of the French lyrics and Bob sang in French. So Bob was the girl and Julian, the boy. It's pretty full on. I do the high part (sings a phrase or two) and Julian does 'You are the wave that does not break' (imitating Julian's Sprechstimme cum baritone) 'Within and without you and I hold my self back'.
I mentioned the curious line - Je vais et je viens / entre tes reins (I go and I come / between your kidneys) 'Oh my God! Is that really what it is? I think Maurice was trying to do something a little bit artistic. Umm, somehow I wish that Julian had sung that line. It might have been a bigger hit!" he laughs.
"Well, actually I was in Paris when Gainsbourg died. It was very dramatic and I remember seeing the most French graffiti I've ever seen - 'Gainsbourg est mort?' Jane Birkin is so big in France. She's very loved. I guess she's sort of like the French Jacky Weaver. Evidently she can't walk through Paris without heads turning.
Here Mark notes a similarity - "Well I can't walk down the streets of Adelaide without being recognised. It's true! I caused a sensation in Haigh's Chocolates."
Upon suggesting they develop a Bob Downe line, he fully concurred. "Yes, a chocolate Bob Downe. I think that would be very funny - in their marsupial series."
Brett Allen-Bayes
 | Bob Downe performs 'iBob' at the Cabaret Festival from Sat 11 June, proudly supported by dB Magazine. |
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