Ramsay St to Chicago
Jason Donovan, like his ‘80s TV co-star Kylie Minogue, has lived overseas for decades but this month he will hit Brisbane to begin rehearsals for his long-awaited hometown stage comeback in the hit musical Chicago
FOR a man who’s been the subject of many news stories he’d love to erase from history, Jason Donovan has had two major media wins this year.
In June while jogging near his London home in Notting Hill, he helped a woman who collapsed on the pavement – calling her an ambulance, following instructions from operators and staying with her until help arrived. The whole incident was captured by paparazzi, who haunt the celebrity hotspot 24/7, selling the pictures to newspapers.
Then last month, Donovan was woken by a fire in a house opposite his place. The 51-year-old ran out of his home in his underwear, armed with a fire extinguisher to get a head start before fire trucks arrived.
He was again labelled a hero in global news coverage, with onlookers taking grainy pictures of Donovan in action.
“I just did what any good neighbour would do,” Donovan says, getting the obvious pun in first. “And I’m glad I was in shape seeing as someone got a photo (in my underwear).
“Seriously, I’m grateful that no one was hurt. The emergency services are the heroes, not me. But there’s not always nice stories written about you, so I’ll take it.”
For many Australians, Donovan is permanently freeze-framed with a blond mullet, standing next Kylie Minogue, circa 1988.
The pair – a couple on screen in Neighbours and off screen in private – both moved to London 30 years ago after launching music careers on the back of their TV characters Scott and Charlene, whose wedding was seen by more than 20 million Brits. Donovan’s Ten Good
Reasons was the biggestselling album in the UK in 1989, containing the hits Too Many Broken Hearts, Nothing Can Divide Us and Sealed With a Kiss.
While Minogue continued to dominate pop, Donovan diversified into musical theatre on London’s West End, starting with the lead role in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat in 1991. Ongoing work in the UK, from theatre
(Priscilla, Sweeney Todd, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, War of the Worlds) to reality-TV
(I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, Strictly Come Dancing)
has kept him off the radar in Australia.
“My career just took off in a certain direction in the UK – it’s not because I haven’t wanted to do more work in Australia,” he says. “I did come back and do (2003 ABC medical drama) MDA in Australia, and (2006 Melbourne Theatre Company black comedy) Festen.
“But it felt logical to settle in the UK because my kids were born there and my wife (Angela Malloch) is British. I have a fan base in the UK. It hasn’t been for not wanting to work more in Australia, it’s just how it’s worked out.
“When you have children you have to settle. I really started to get back to work and focus once I had children. Before that, well, the ’90s spoke for themselves.”
The ’90s were indeed a dizzy ride for Donovan. After starting his acting career as an 11-year-old on
Skyways (where he met Minogue, who played his sister), he’d tasted the highs and lows of success and fame by his early 20s.
Soon after topping the charts in 1989 with Especially For You, a duet with Minogue, their secret relationship abruptly ended.
Cruelly for Donovan, Minogue left him for his idol – Michael Hutchence – the rock star whose credible career he wanted.
In the classic move of a pop star rebelling against having their every move controlled for years, Donovan went off the rails – all around the world.
Another cruel irony came at the peak of Donovan’s cocaine addiction in 1995 when Hutchence put him in an ambulance after a drugrelated seizure at model Kate Moss’s 21st at the Viper Room in Los Angeles.
Donovan documented his debauched decade in 2007 autobiography Between the Lines. He’s just sold the Bondi party flat he bought in 1994 – his peak hedonism era – for about $2.2 million.
“It was a period in my life where, well, let’s just say the restrictions were off. I’d worked pretty hard for many years from when I left school to 1992/1993. I had some good times, I won’t lie.
“I get asked about drugs a lot, but you show me a career that hasn’t had a moment where things haven’t gone a bit left of centre? I focus on the fact I got through that period and have rebuilt my life into something I’m very proud of now with a wonderful family.”
In 1998 Donovan met Malloch, a stage manager for
The Rocky Horror Show,
when he was playing Dr Frank-N-Furter. Their daughter Jemma was born in 2000, Donovan’s wake-up call to quit drugs. They’ve had two more children, Zac, 18, who is studying politics, and Mollie, 8.
Jemma, 19, is now the third Donovan to be cast in
Neighbours. Her grandfather Terence joined the show shortly after Jason left (playing Doug Willis). She plays Harlow Robinson, granddaughter of Neighbours villain Paul Robinson (Stefan Dennis) and distant relative of Donovan’s character Scott Robinson. Jemma got the job without her father’s help, securing her own agent, even if her surname clearly opened doors.
“She stands on her own two feet,” Donovan says. “She needs my support but she doesn’t need my help. It’s a big deal for a 19-year-old girl to move to the other side of the world and pick up the Donovan legacy but she’s risen to the occasion.”
As well as FaceTime helping the separation anxiety, Donovan and Malloch can watch their daughter on TV every night.
JEMMA living in his old hometown helped Donovan agree to what will be his first musical role in Australia as Billy Flynn in the Melbourne leg of
Chicago. Commitments in London (performing in
Joseph again – this time as Pharaoh, and co-producing a new version of Priscilla
Queen of the Desert – he was originally offered Guy Pearce’s role in the iconic film) meant Donovan couldn’t do the Sydney and Brisbane legs, where Tom Burlinson was playing Flynn.
Donovan flies into Brisbane later this month to start rehearsals with the cast, including Casey Donovan and fellow Neighbours alumni Natalie Bassingthwaighte.
“I’m a transfer coming in off the bench,” he laughs.
As a child, Donovan saw his father play Billy Flynn in a 1980 production of Chicago.
“It was a very impressionable time for me. I grew up watching Dad in
Division 4, Cop Shop, Breaker Morant, The Club … Chicago was such a cool, slick show, even as an 11-year-old watching from the wings.”
Donovan has a few immediate pit stops when he returns home for the summer run of Chicago with his whole family in tow.
“I want to check out Jemma’s pad, see how our parenting has worked out, see if our eldest child is as together as I think she is. Then I want to catch up with Dad. He’s still doing 50 laps of the Harold Holt pool every day, so I’d love to have a swim with him there, or down at Prahran or St Kilda. But I’m there to work.”
He plans to visit Jemma at work and visit the Neighbours set in Nunawading.
“The time is right. It’s a bit like going back to school.”
The savvy actor knows the trip will fire up the perennial rumours about a possible cameo back on
Neighbours, which turns 35 next year.
“It’s something I’d do if Guy (Pearce) and Kylie said ‘OK, let’s do a couple of days back on set’. It’d have to be a package deal to feel right. I’m here to support Jemma’s career, not upstage her.
DONOVAN says he’s rekindled his friendship with Minogue in the past decade. After being invited to her 50th birthday last year, Donovan got on stage at her Hyde Park concert a few months later to perform Especially For You.
“We all get to an age where we like to look back,” he says.
“Those characters were a massive part of people’s lives. The crossover was a song that married that TV couple with the real-life couple, and it was a great song that was a big success. People like to fall in love with that moment again.”
Donovan, whose birthday is three days after Minogue’s, admits he piggybacked on her milestone party but had a low-key event in the country with his family.
“Kylie’s 50th was a big one,” he says.
“I can’t remember much after 3am. It was almost like celebrating my 50th as well. All my past was there too. I keep in touch with Guy quite a lot. Kylie a little less but we WhatsApp more these days than we ever have.
He knows he and Minogue will forever be linked.
“We both had this incredible experience together. Occasionally we’ll meet up and both go, ‘Wow, look at where we are’.”
While Minogue still tours Australia regularly, Donovan has confined his touring to the UK.
“It’s supply and demand. Unfortunately Australian promoters aren’t knocking down my door to tour,” Donovan says.
“I’d love to do it, but my music career never really took off in Australia in the way it did in the UK.
“My work isn’t just about singing Too Many Broken
Hearts. I do a lot of work in TV, theatre, radio. I’d like to do more work in Australia, though. Chicago is a way of ticking that box. I’ve brought up three kids. I’m a hands-on dad. I like to be near my family. That has settled me for the last 18 years.
“I’m starting to come out of the wilderness a little bit.”