Robyn Archer

A sarcastic little slogan on a wall in Australia’s arts funding organisation in the mid-1990s read ‘Il y a trop d’art’. All right, it was meant in jest, but it seemed to hint broadly at shared bureaucratic resentment of importunate artists, even though they were the Council’s clients and the reason, indeed, for its very existence. Remember the national health hospital in Yes Minister that ran perfectly until it had to take patients?

In 1964 the Australian television show Bandstand set up an annual talent contest called Bandstand Starflight International. In its first year, one of the national finalists was a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl called Robyn Smith, who later changed her surname to Archer. The following year, the contest was won by a 24-year-old professional singer called Helen Reddy.