By PAUL MILLAR
UNLIKE Paris Hilton, Rob Mills is not famous just for being famous.
He’s has had to work at it, contrary to the US hotel heiress with whom he famously had a brief fling.
Mills scanned the scene in Geelong this week in preparation for his cabaret show, which will take the audience through an emotional yet humorous look at his life.
“It’s a musical journey about a sheltered boy from Melbourne who originally wanted to be a Dermott Brereton but turned out to be a bit more like John Farnham,” Mills told the Independent.
Easy-going but serious about his music, the Victorian said he would run through a series of anecdotes of his life, laced with show tunes from musicals in which he had performed, including Wicked.
“It’s also about finding my own voice after coming from a cover band,” he says.
Mills will always carry the Hilton saga as baggage but the actor and musician is a showman in his own right. That’s why the show, called Rob Mills, is surprisingly good, according to theatre-goers who have been in the audience.
The one-time reality television contestant said it was time to forget about old-style cabaret with high-kicking dancers.
“Cabaret is not a dirty word. This is one-man theatre with music telling a good story,” he said.
“It’s half stand-up and half musical theatre. It’s funny but it has a good moral to it.
“My aim is to tell a story, to make people laugh and even cry.”
“And at the end I do talk about Paris Hilton,” said Mills, understanding he would never shake off their hook-up so he might as well include it in his act.
Mills will perform at Geelong Peforming Arts Centre on 28 and 29 August.
