Wobbler You Can't Tie Down

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday November 19, 2008

Paola Totaro

Rolf Harris is 78 but he's not about to take it easy, writes Paola Totaro in London.

In the muted surrounds of the Trafalgar Hotel's breakfast room on a grey London day, the man in the blue blazer, turquoise shirt and blazing pink and purple tie can't help but stand out. Then there is the shock of thick, silver hair framed by the big trademark glasses.

Rolf Harris looks up from a cup of tea and his face, familiar in the way that only the truly famous can be, breaks into a wide grin.

We are lucky to have caught him. Harris has come directly from one breakfast TV appearance and is due in yet another London TV studio in a couple of hours. He is about to embark on a trip to Australia and a schedule that would daunt a man half his age. There is a series of shows at Sydney Opera House, a keynote lecture at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra, the launch of a new illustrated edition of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, a performance at the annual Schools Spectacular in Sydney, a Herald literary lunch in Sydney and a similar gig in Melbourne for The Age. There is more, but with a thespian sigh and one eye on his longtime agent, Pat Lake-Smith, he insists he is too exhausted to continue talking about the diary.

Harris is an infuriatingly well-preserved 78 but for an instant, a shadow flutters over his face as he talks about what is in store. But it passes quickly.

Spending an hour with Rolf Harris feels like a ride on one of those seaside-fairground roller coasters - up, down, back in time, a hurtle forwards, snatches of music, memories, laughter, wacky sound effects, more laughter and lots of jokes. (Harris likes a good dirty joke and his current favourite contains the "c" word so he wouldn't tell me - it had to be recounted later by the male photographer.)

Harris's past year has been as hectic as ever: three BBC documentaries, an exhibition of limited-edition prints and paintings at the Portland Gallery, a new DVD of live performance, induction into the Aria Hall of Fame, a TV program on World War I, and the new illustrated edition and soundtrack of Kangaroo for Ashton Scholastic. Somewhere in there he found time to play the wobble board for the soundtrack of Baz Luhrmann's film Australia.

His body of work spans so many media it is difficult to determine what best defines him: painting and portraiture, music, writing or performance? Asked to choose one, he pauses briefly: "Entertainer. I would say just entertainer. But it depends on what I am doing at the time. I get such a buzz out of painting. If the painting is working I am king of the world. If you have an audience and they are loving it and you convince them to see the world through your eyes for a while, that is magic, too. Many years ago I read a statement that encompasses my whole attitude to life and it said: 'Make your hobby your profession and you will never do another day's work in your life.' That's just great isn't it?"

Who, I ask, authored the saying? "Oh, I dunno ... probably Fred McThradcabbage, you know him?"

"Aaaah, the great philosopher Fred McThradcabbage," I respond.

"Oh no, maybe it was Fred McPhurtlesquirt ... that's McPhurtlesquirt with a 'ph'," he says and laughs uproariously.

And so the discussion unfolds, peppered with plenty of old-fashioned Vaudeville and a good touch of the absurd. Harris happily explains the roots of that rhythmic musical breathing thing he does, and pants loudly "like a dog" to demonstrate the breathing technique needed, briefly alarming a New Zealand couple at the next table.

Next, he teaches us to do "long-distance drumming", a sleight of hand that looks for all the world as if he could create drumming sounds in thin air. Then he blips and clinks like a leaky tap and at one point lets fly with several verses of a loud and funny ditty delivered in a teeth-clenchingly hideous Afrikaans accent.

He says he is still on a high after Luhrmann called him a few weeks ago asking that he record himself and the wobble board for Australia. "I got an email the other day saying that what I did fitted so well that they commissioned the composer to write a special song and they put my voice where the chap did the guide track," he says.

It is easy to forget that this man who exudes a childlike exuberance has been in the public eye for half a century. The grandson of a painter, his own father had been "brutally discouraged" from being an artist. Harris says his father passionately encouraged his children's talents. Harris is still the youngest artist to be hung in the Archibald Prize, for a self-portrait completed aged 14.

At 15, he swam 110 yards in 80 seconds and was Australian junior backstroke champion. He played piano, wrote lyrics and already knew what he wanted to do with his life.

When Harris stepped off a ferry in Dover in 1952 he was fired with the desire to emulate his grandfather, but it was the exciting early days of TV that seduced him. Since then he has worked with some of the best and greatest, including Woody Allen and Tony Hancock, hosted the BBC's highest-rating art program (Rolf On Art), had the Beatles singing Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport, painted the Queen and even rocked the socks off a new generation with his reinvention of Stairway To Heaven.

At the Glastonbury festival he had 80,000 people chanting his name and was voted most popular entertainer. He has designed an Australian coin, organised thousands of painters to recreate Constable's Haywain in giant scale in Trafalgar Square for the BBC, hosted 19 series of the hugely successful Animal Hospital and collected two gongs along the way.

In the past few weeks he has worked on his lecture for the opening of the new Portrait Gallery in Canberra, collecting slides of his work to illustrate the speech. His portrait of the Queen, painted for her 80th birthday, will also be exhibited.

For the new edition of Kangaroo he spent three months painting full-time, with each of the book's 15 double-page spreads conceived and completed in paint on canvas.

The originals will be hung in an exhibition at the ABC building in Ultimo. The book also contains a DVD of the song performed, of course, by the author and illustrator.

Next month's Opera House season came about after a chance meeting with the artistic producer Wendy Martin, whose late father, Lloyd Martin, was the longest-serving general manager of the Opera House.

"I was at some function or another and she asked me if I remember a little seven-year-old girl in a pink dress whohad watched me perform from the wings at a first concert in the Opera House in 1973. Her father was running it then. Heis dead and gone but she is there now and asked if I would do the shows.

"I said ring my brother in Sydney [Bruce Harris, his long-time manager] and he will organise something and that is how it all came to fruition."

So, did he remember the little girl in the pink dress? Harris throws his head back again and laughs: "How many kids do you think I would have seen in Australia over the years, yeeeah mmm, maybe about . . . three."

The show spans Rolf Harris's 50-year career in showbiz, complete with archival footage and images. He says he simply plans to do what he does and loves best: sing, chat, do pictures and tell stories.

Rolf Harris will speak at a Herald/Dymocks literary lunch next Tuesday. Bookings 9449 4366. He performs at the Opera House on December 9-21.

© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald

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