This is another group who found briefly fame on the Australian chart in the 80s, and one of them went on to be fairly famous in this country too. Globos were a duo who consisted of Wendy and Mark. In September 1982, their debut single “Tinterella Di Luna” was released, and reached no. 30. They also made a few TV appearances around this time.
One of them was being interviewed by “Molly” on pop music show Countdown, which was a sign that you had made it back in those days. And in March 1983, their second and final single, a cover of Sonny And Cher’s 1967 hit “The Beat Goes On” reached no. 28. Now I have to say that this is my favourite of the two. When I watched the video, I noticed that Wendy had some green streaks in her hair, now nice.
But then I took a look at Mark, and I thought that he seemed to be familiar from somewhere else. It turns out that Globos split not long after the realise of this single (which wasn’t released in the UK, and they didn’t get as far as an album), because Mark wanted to go off and pursue his comedy career, as he had created a character, who would go on to do rather well.
This turned out to be Bob Downe, who appeared on various comedy shows in this country throughout the 90s, showing off his amusingly camp style. I already wrote a little about his career in my piece on BSB’s Up Yer Festival where he appeared, but I didn’t realise that he had a couple of hit singles in Australia, and almost four decades ago now as well.
He did well enough to get a comedy special of his own on ITV in 1996 (well it was rather late on New Year’s Eve, but this still counts). He performed his combination of comedy and music, and his special guests included Ant And Dec and Anthony Newley, and well I never would’ve thought that I would’ve been able to get from Globos to Anthony Newley in one step.
Among the other TV shows that he appeared on around this time was Des O’Connor Tonight, and best of all, at the end of the 90s, he had his own show on digital channel UK Play, which was a definite sign that you’d succeeded, where he toured the country. It seems that in more recent years he has continued to tour as Bob Downe all over the world.
ADAM'S NOSTALGIC MEMORIES 