“I WAS BORN IN Ballarat. Dad
ran a paint and wallpaper business,
which had been in the family for
four generations. Mum grew up
in Melbourne and then Horsham.
I’ve got Welsh, English, Scottish
and Polish in my background, but the
singing is definitely a Welsh thing.
My father had a nice baritone and sang
in musicals, whereas my mother had
more of an interest in classical music.
I did my first musical with Dad
when I was about 10 — he was Fagan
and I was the Artful Dodger in Oliver.
He also had a great love for comedy
— Stanley Holloway monologues
and old-time British comedians were
always in the mix. As you can see,
it was hard to avoid performing…
I joined the church choir when
I was seven or eight, but at that
age I didn’t see music as anything.
You just did it. It wasn’t like I was
in a non-musical family and then
discovered I had a voice: I was no
Billy Elliot, I always sang!
I lived in only two houses in Ballarat
— one till I was about nine and the
other until I left to go to Melbourne
University. The second was a classic
late ’60s or early ’70s brown brick,
five-bedroom house. It was quite big
and had enough room in the yard for
a cricket pitch and to kick the footy.
The door was never locked and our
house was always full. My parents used
to love people dropping in and they’d
sit around the kitchen table chatting.
Mind you, it was always full of
cigarette smoke...
I’m in the middle: there’s two sisters
on either side of me — Anne and >
“AS A YOUNG KID ALL MY HEROES WERE
COMPOSERS. I USED TO PRETEND... I WAS HANDEL.”
