A Bloody good show (From Croydon Guardian)

A Bloody good show

12:18pm Thursday 16th November 2006

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Even the people standing near Kevin Bloody' Wilson swear like sailors. Kevin and I were having a perfectly civilised phone conversation about brothels, hard-drinking miners, the do's and don'ts of signing fans' breasts and good ways to offend a whole country in one go, when some voices in the background completely lowered the tone with their foul language.

"Sorry, there's a few locals shouting," he commentates, clearly amused, "they're calling each other all sorts of things. I thought I was back in Kalgoorlie for a second, except for the accents."

Comedian and singer Kevin is in Sterling, East Scotland, for the next leg of his UK tour, more than 9,000 miles from his Australian birth town of Kalgoorlie, which formed during the late 19th century gold rush. And despite being an archetypal Aussie bloke, speaking about the town turns him into a Labrador puppy in a pink bow "It's a very special place and I love it very much. I've got relatives still there and the quality of life is great, it's very free and open.

"And it's hardly changed since the first people settled there. The brothels are still there, they're not legalised but they're tolerated. They have certain conditions' put on them apparently."

It was back in Kalgoorlie where Kevin first made a name for himself, "playing the trucks and tractors" in a band to supplement his electrician's wage. And his quality barometer still harks back to those days: "When I write, I always think if it works for my mates, it'll work on the stage'. If the world blew up tomorrow I'd happily go back to doing the barbeques and piss-ups; I'm just a hobbyist really, they just keep throwing money at me."

And it's not just cash being thrown in his direction. Female fans brandishing intimate parts of their body and a biro have become almost a running joke at the post-show meet and greet, after an American lawyer did so after a concert in Western Australia. "It just says to me that they get the joke," he says, "it's just a bit of fun."

Not everyone appreciates his brash, crude style though. The Australian embassy in Canada contacted him directly prior to a tour to omit a certain four-letter word from his act. The 59-year-old promptly wrote a song about the request, came straight on stage for the first night in Montreal and opened with a rendition of "You Can't Say **** In Canada".

"It finished with 1,500 Canadians punching the air. I played it three times that night."

Kevin Bloody' Wilson; Fairfield Halls, Park Lane, Croydon, CR9 1DG; Friday, November 17; box office 020 8688 9291 or fairfield.co.uk.

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