ASPIRING young performers got tips from one of Australia’s leading entertainers on Sunday - but they weren’t all sure who he was.
Southern Highlands Youth Arts Council (SHYAC) members rushed to the window to admire David Campbell’s silver Mini Cooper when it pulled up at The Highlands School of Performing Arts (THSPA) on Sunday, but it took them a while to realise the man in the flannelette shirt and jeans quietly watching their rehearsal from the door was the “king of swing” pictured in a tuxedo on the cover of his top-selling CDs.
Campbell has set records in New York’s cabaret scene, starred in musical theatre in New York and Australia, shared stages with music’s greats, and appeared on Dancing With the Stars.
But he credits the Highlands Youth Theatre Company, a forerunner of SHYAC, with turning a rebellious teenager into an award-winning performer.
Raised in Adelaide by his strict maternal grandmother, Campbell told listeners he was a “nerdy little kid” who wore shorts in winter and didn’t wear sneakers until high school.
“At around 11 or 12 years old, I found out my father was Jimmy Barnes,” he said. “I knew I was adopted, but I didn’t know that I was adopted by my own family.
When he was 18, Campbell moved to Mittagong to live with his father, which turned out to be “a really dumb decision”.
“My dad had a young family, then suddenly he had an 18-year-old son who was rebellious and angry,” he said.
“I had no friends when I moved here. I had family and that was problematic because I wasn’t getting along with them at the time.”
The Highlands Youth Theatre Company offered a refuge, and Campbell threw himself into performing, painting sets, rigging lighting, and making costumes.
He also found a mentor in Les Solomon, who was running the Highlands Youth Theatre Company at the time and later became David’s agent.
“He embraced the theatre with such a fervour the Barneses never saw him,” Solomon said.
“He was riotous, extremely difficult to control, but a fast learner. All the kids loved him.”
Campbell won a Young Achiever’s Award citation for his role in Butterflies are Free and an Australia Day Award for contribution to youth arts.
He said his diverse experience in youth theatre has stood him in good stead for his current role as the artistic director of the Adelaide Cabaret Festival.
Campbell said his success in the entertainment industry was due in part of “crazy luck” and in part to a lot of hard work.
“Everything I’ve got in my career, I owe to my teachers and people who took chances on me,” he said.
“They’ll give you gifts and you don’t realise what a gift they have given you until later one.”
He told SHYAC’s young performers to have fun, work hard and “not show off too much”.
“If you are passionate about it and work really hard about it, you can go to London and LA and sing and dance,” he said.
Campbell announced to the audience at Sunday night’s performance at the Mittagong RSL that he had agreed to become SHYAC’s patron.
SHYAC secretary Paul McShane, said his visit would inspire the young people who met him to bigger and better things.
“David’s willingness to agree to alter his busy schedule to accept our late invitation to visit the workshop says a lot about the guy’s character and his commitment to encouraging young people and the arts,” he said.
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