Back by popular demand – get ready to revel in the golden age of variety television once more as two small-screen veterans with big personality team up to recreate Channel 9’s Adelaide Tonight.

Initially airing in 1959, South Australia’s first live TV show catapulted local talent into the limelight. Now, 19-time Logie winner Anne ‘Willsy’ Wills joins Countdown and Mardi Gras icon Bob Downe for one hilarious hour of live, tea-time entertainment with a cabaret twist.

Featuring an ever-changing line-up of fabulous artists and quick-witted comedy that will have you rolling in the aisles, Adelaide Tonight is a raucous reinvention of TV history.

Bob Downe is one of Australia's most loved and enduring comedy characters, the creation of journalist, comedian, actor, and broadcaster Mark Trevorrow.

Mark created Bob Downe in September 1984 at the Glebe Food Fair in Sydney and has toured the world as the Prince of Polyester ever since – including a nomination for Best Newcomer at the inaugural Melbourne International Comedy Festival (1987), a Glasgow Mayfest Award (1994), consecutive Melbourne Green Room Awards for Best Cabaret Artiste (1999 and 2000), five sell-out Sydney Opera House seasons and 18 Edinburgh Fringe festivals. In 2013 he was presented with another Green Room Award, for Lifetime Achievement in Cabaret. Bob's 2014 production show, Bob Sweat & Tears was nominated for four more Green Room Awards.

Looking at her extraordinary 56-year career, it’s hard to picture Willsy’s face anywhere but on our television sets. Before her debut on the big screen, she worked in the department store John Martins’ as ‘Miss Whispee’, the representative for popular shoe brand Whispee Shoes, in 1964.

It was in July 1965 when Willsy’s phone rang. On the other end was none other than Rex Heading, asking her to come in to audition for the Channel Nine weather girl position. It was from that very point that Willsy would grace our screens for the next 35 years, delivering the weather report with love, working each week with Ernie Sigley on the prime-time show Adelaide Tonight, helming a weekly movie program called Movie Scene and hosting a daytime magazine show called A.M. Adelaide. She won audiences with her infectious charisma and an unrivalled sense of humour.

In 1967, Anne Wills would officially become affectionately known as “Willsy”. It was on her first show with Ernie, as his Barrel Girl. Willsy and her younger sister Sue were given the chance to sing on Adelaide Tonight and on Reg Lindsey’s Country & Western Show. They entertained the troops in Vietnam twice: in 1969 and again in 1970.

Buy tickets to Adelaide Tonight here.

More information from the 2023 Adelaide Cabaret Festival edition of WeekendPlus: