Smooth operator

Smooth operator

Three years ago in a number of unadvertised performances at Fitzroy’s Black Cat Caf?Mark Trevorrow took to the microphone without his Bob Downe wig.

It was the beginning of what seemed a cool and calculated murder of his alter ego. Trevorrow toured the country in his own name, singing slinky Sinatra and lounge lullabies. His first album as Mark Trevorrow, It’s About Time, was released earlier this year, and he hosted his first non-cable show on ABC TV -“ The Way We Were -“ as defiantly non-Bob.

At the end of this month he struts on the City Recital Hall stage in Angel Place singing songs from his album -“ and finally it feels natural.

It’s certainly lovely to get to a point where it’s really second nature, Trevorrow said. When I opened at the Opera House, that first night at the Studio, about 11 of the charts were the first time I’d performed them in public. And it was astoundingly difficult and took a lot of concentration -¦

But I’ve got to that point when you can really start performing them well, because you can do your variations, change your phrasing and your attitude with them. Concentrate on how you move them, he said.

If Trevorrow has refashioned himself as a smooth operator, it’s gratifying to discover he hasn’t lost his sense of humour, or a sense of joy and openness about his sexuality.

In The Way We Were, Trevorrow was both host and chanteur, providing camp banter that acknowledged his gayness, but stopped short of the antics of Graeme Norton or Julian Clary. It was a deliberate move, he said.

I wanted that to be part of it, but not the raison d’?e, he said. So in that way, I wanted to do something which was not Queer Eye: you know, let’s tune in and look at the fag. So that was something that was very important to me, to have it as part of who I am and what I do and not the central part.

Surprisingly, Bob Downe is not dead. Old showbiz characters never die: they just do more corporate gigs, which is where the Murwillumbah superstar has been appearing for months now. Trevorrow never intended him to be lost forever, just asked to shut up for a while so Mark could try a little tenderness.

It’s great news for fans, as is an upcoming concert celebrating Bob’s 21st birthday.

It’s going to be a flashback show, but a preposterous flashback show, an anniversary concert that’s a send-up of anniversary shows, he said, then sighed. The show would somehow fit into a 2005 schedule alongside a second season of The Way We Were, which he said looked likely. I better hit that Bikram yoga, he said.

Mark Trevorrow appears in It’s About Time at the City Recital Hall, Angel Place, for one night only: Friday 22 October. Phone 8256 2222 for bookings.

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