John Thorne and the Bob Down Five,
take five boys!
Aren't they fantastic?
I have to do that.
It's alright, you can stop, they're gone.
No,
I have to do that because if anybody's ever been in a stage show,
particularly a
Bankstown rep where there's a lot of you on stage,
and they're clapping and you're trying
to get off and there's a big queue and it's all jammed up.
And I'll tell you what,
if you're still on stage,
just getting to the door,
when they've stopped clapping,
it's like your * is on fire.
Oh, thank God they've gone anyway.
Oh, God. They're vile.
They're hideous.
Particularly the old one.
Oh,
no, they're vile.
They tease me, they hit me.
They will not go on stage until they've made me cry.
They touch my hair.
I'm a little bit Mike Walsh about that.
Now,
oh,
gosh,
as you know or may not know,
or do not care,
I don't care,
the last few months,
of course,
I've been living in London.
And,
don't you hate it when wankers come back and say that?
Where have you been?
London.
Well,
I have.
I'm not going to lie.
If I'd been in bloody Adelaide,
I would have said so.
Just a bit more quietly.
And, Adelaide,
what?
Adelaide.
Adelaide.
Got beautiful wine, shut up.
And it's funny,
you know,
when you're Aussie,
has anybody lived in London?
Of course you have.
We've all been over there.
Isn't that funny?
Aren't they?
The thing about being an Aussie in
London is there's just not enough of us,
are there?
Because they did everything they could to stop us,
too,
didn't they?
They joined the EC,
they stopped borrowing our butter.
They changed the visa requirements.
We still slip through, don't we?
About 10,000 backpacks a day.
Getting off that big Qantas that's painted,
you know,
Aboriginal red.
Have you seen that plane?
Have you seen it flying across the sky in a blue sky afternoon?
It looks like a flying chop.
And the blue one looks like a brisket,
doesn't it?
Well,
it stands out at Heathrow and they all get off with their
backpacks and they fan out in the general direction of Earls Court.
And when you've just got,
if you are an Aussie and you've just got back to London,
you know,
they know you've just arrived back,
they always ask the same thing, don't they?
They always say,
so what's going to happen on Neighbours?
And
do you say what I say?
I always say, how would I know?
We don't watch it,
we just make it for you dickheads,
you know what I mean?
Then they say things like, do you know Kylie?
Do you know Jason?
No!
It's a big country, isn't it?
You have to explain that to them.
I say it's a big country,
there's not many of us,
we're spread out.
We are, aren't we?
Sort of like, what's for tea, Mum?
Tea, Mum?
Chop!
Actually funnily enough,
I did run into Jason at the Viper Room in LA,
tripped over him.
That's a kitty cat moment, that's damn...
And Kylie, wouldn't it be great to meet Kylie?
She goes to all the great bloody clubs and
everything.
I haven't met Kylie,
I'd love to be introduced to Kylie,
but I tell you
what, if I'm introduced to Danny one more time,
I'm gonna slap the little bitch.
And then you can be guaranteed,
you're sitting in a pub,
you can hardly get
through a day in London without somebody
insulting you about being an Aussie,
isn't
it true?
And around about 10 o'clock,
10.30 in the pub,
oh yeah,
they're real late
openers over there,
and somebody always gets around to it,
always.
So do you know
Skippy?
No!
Why the hell would I know Skippy?
She hasn't worked for years, has she?
She's bitter.
She'd give Fat Cat a run for his money,
I'll tell you.
He's coming up in the
Royal Commission, don't worry about that.
Ugly, horrible.
Oh Skippy, and the thing is,
and the thing is,
the people in London are always amazed to know when I tell
them that Skippy's still alive,
of course,
living in retirement at Waratah Park,
where they made the series.
It's true, isn't it?
And you can go up there apparently and
pay two bob and poker with a stick.
She's always hiding up the back of the cage under the fibro.
Shocking.
Her pouch is a bit droopy now,
it's a bit worn away.
Ugly, nothing like an old kangaroo, I tell you.
As we saw at the Olympic Opening Cemetery.
Opening Cemetery,
that was what it was too,
wasn't it?
And the other thing about being an Aussie in London,
we give ourselves away,
don't we?
Because it's the way we talk.
Apparently they know when we're losing it in London.
My British friends tell me in London that
they always know when I'm losing it,
when I'm getting a bit angry,
when I'm turning like a chicken rotisserie.
Because apparently when we're mad as Aussies,
when we're getting a bit angry,
we start going,
no, no,
no,
no, we do.
No,
no,
no,
no,
look,
no,
look,
no,
look,
no,
look,
listen,
no,
look,
listen, no, look,
listen, no, look,
listen, I'm stuck in a loop.
And apparently for a Kiwi they know because they go,
no,
look,
listen,
aye.
It's
tragic to be that obvious, isn't it?
Tell you what,
I've dined out,
I have dined out over there.
They're dead impressed in London with the
fact that I was on the Royal Variety Show
a couple of years ago.
Yeah,
oh,
thanks for clapping on your own like a seal over there.
Well, it's sad to see that someone's impressed.
It was amazing doing the Royal Variety Show
because it was like all those stars backstage,
all cheek by jowl.
You can imagine the tension and the tantrums,
the tears.
In the end we
said, all right, Cliff, do half an hour.
Which is 15 minutes shorter than Wimbledon,
admittedly,
wasn't it?
She's just a devil woman with evil on her mind.
He scares me when he does that.
Doesn't he?
I reckon,
don't you think,
Cliff Richard,
he's got a real capacity for evil,
don't you think?
And then afterwards,
it's not over till it's over,
afterwards you are lined up to meet
her Royal Money Madge.
And it's like, it's a lot of security.
You can imagine you put
through your paces.
It's like, they go, you will stand here.
You will not move.
You will
not speak unless spoken to.
You will call her your Majesty or your Royal Highness.
Naturally
you're pretty relaxed.
And in she comes.
It's the Queen.
It's the bloody Queen.
It's like
a woman's weekly cover come to life.
Except she didn't have any of those cover lines next
to her,
you know,
sort of Candy Raymond rape shock.
None of that.
16 pages all about budgies.
None of that.
And she doesn't really walk the Queen,
she sort of glides.
She's like
a Dalek.
Destroy, Urbe.
Exterminate, Urbe.
And she's coming along the line and because
you've been told that you're not allowed
to speak unless she speaks to you,
you're trying
to hear what she's saying,
but you can't hear what she's saying.
Because they don't, they're
not allowed to put a big furry microphone.
They're not allowed to shove anything up her
jacksie.
Nothing like that.
It's protocol.
And you always know what she's saying, don't
you?
Because when you watch the Royal Variety Show,
there's that London Weekend voiceover
man, isn't there?
And Her Majesty says hello now to Helen Pierce.
And says how much she
enjoyed that scrotum routine.
But you know what's going on, but we don't.
We're all straining to hear and all I can
hear is oi oi oi.
That's all I can hear.
Oi oi oi.
I think the Queen used to do the voices
for Bill and Ben.
I don't know.
Finally, she gets to me, right?
And I was rigid.
I was like a coiled spring.
Because of course I was unlike all the rest of the losers there.
I was representing my bloody country, wasn't I?
I had to get it right.
There was going to be no bloody Helen Reddy tiara incident,
I tell you.
I was standing on the same spot as Frank Ifield,
the Seekers,
all the greats.
And they
think that's the best we can do too.
Oh Christ,
mind you Barnsey would be good on the Royal Variety,
wouldn't he?
So the Queen gets along to me and she goes and she says,
are you okay?
Oi oi oi.
Well, I covered my bases.
I went yes and no.
Well, thank goodness Philip was with her.
He was with her.
The anus horribilis, he was with her.
And he made himself useful for once.
He said,
Her Majesty said,
are you working here or there?
I said, oh.
I said,
oh,
well I work a little bit in Australia.
I work a little bit in London.
I'm a little bit country.
I'm a little bit rock and roll.
I'm a little bit Donny.
I'm a little bit Marie.
Oh gosh,
do you know what the Queen said to me too?
That she didn't say to anybody else in the line-up.
She asked if she could see a valid work permit.
It's Queen's handshake too.
It's pretty weird.
Queen's handshake.
I can tell you this right now.
She doesn't squeeze.
Seriously, she's got repetitive strain injury.
It's true.
She doesn't squeeze.
She just sort of puts it in your hand.
It's like a dead trout wrapped in satin.
Comes away at the shoulder.
And the jewels, gosh, she was festooned.
Unlike Kenny Williams,
I know,
she was festooned.
She had sapphires like thumbnails.
She had everything on.
Everything on.
I thought, why is she worn everything?
She was probably worried, wasn't she?
Fergie and Diana back at the palace
trying everything on while she's out.
Or maybe
it was Edward.
I don't know.
He'll be here for the Mardi Gras next year.
I'll be waiting.
You
met her in the first half.
She is absolutely delightful.
Of course,
you know her.
Please welcome back for one song only,
Miss Pastel Vespa.
Thank you very much.
Oh, look at you!
Magnificent, darling.
Oh, darling, let me help you with that.
I don't think I'm very strong.
Absolutely.
What do we look like together, too, Pastel?
We look like a lime splice.
Now,
I'm intrigued about your exotic and unusually interesting accent.
Where are you from again?
From Brazil to begin with,
but all over the place.
Everywhere.
I don't know.
I detected a little bit of punchbowl, Macell.
I don't know.
We shouldn't make jokes which Pash doesn't understand,
should we?
Now, you are born in Brazil.
Do you like Ferdio Mendes and Preté Thicc Thicc?
I love them to pieces.
Did I say that right?
I can't say it like you.
Ferdio Mendes and Preté Thicc Thicc.
Especially when they did their Beatles covers.
Weren't they great?
They were great.
What was that one they did?
And I think I'm going out of my head.
I think they must have been on Prozac when they did that one.
That was the most controlled nervous breakdown I've ever heard.
So here we are,
looking pretty darn stunning,
if I say so myself.
Not a lot of people can get away with wearing this colour,
and I'm one of them.
Anyway,
here we are,
a couple of international variety artistes.
Do you feel the duet coming on?
I can feel one.
Oh, matter of fact, I've got one now.
Which is quite a relief,
isn't it,
that we feel like doing a duet since we've been
rehearsing one for the last three flippin' weeks.
But anyway,
so we're going to do a bit of a
tribute to Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66.
Oh,
wait a minute.
Are they your earrings or my hairdo for the last part of the show?
Heavy enough.
That's a lovely sound for a live album,
isn't it?
People are going to listen to that album,
they'd hear that and think,
why are they doing the show in the kitchen at the Hilton?
LAUGHTER