She is a loud, lycra-loving dag and Josie Parrelli won't go changing,

writes Bridget McManus.


Queen Josie Parrelli Photo By Simon Schluter

She's too "vulgar" for commercial television and "not ethnic enough" for SBS. She's been called fat and ugly by viewers, and told by a network executive to shut up and let her male offsider do the talking. People are always asking her why, after seven years hosting a tacky 1980s music show on public television, she won't move on ?

But Josie Parrelli, the big-haired, lycra-loving, daggy-dancing star of one of Channel 31's longest-running programs, Chartbusting 80s, is doing what she loves.

And if she can ride the '80s revival wave long enough, she might just wash up on mainstream TV. Former station-mates Rove McManus, Hamish and Andy, and new SBS gardening guru Vasili Kanidiadis made the crossover, so why not a brash, Wham!-worshipping, hairdresser from Perth with southern Italian roots?

"I'm seeing how far the wings of the show can carry me," says a toned-down version of "Queen Josie", lounging at Loop bar in the city, where her fourth compilation DVD was launched. "A large production house associated with the ABC loved the concept, but when they gave me the contract they wanted 100 per cent ownership and 'Ms Perelli' - surname spelt wrong - could stay on in a consultancy role. They said, 'We can't understand why you're turning this down'."

Queen Josie may be a shambolic megalomaniac, who lambasts her cowering co-host Jeff Jenkins, lewdly introduces best-forgotten clips from the likes of the Chantoozies and Nick Kershaw, and flings herself at the audience during signature horror-karaoke segments, but her creator is no fool.

Recognising a niche market, Parrelli first approached Channel 31 in 2000 at the age of 22, with the idea of running a clip show. When spare air-time demanded a presenter, she rose to the occasion, adding Jenkins to the mix when he introduced her to her idol, Molly Meldrum, whose biography Jenkins is writing.

The odd couple - who Parrelli describes as "like George and Mildred" - and the show, have come a long way since the station's primitive early days of second-hand pneumatic tapes and transmission glitches.

Back then the pair had to "pull riff-raff off the street" to make up a dismal studio audience. Now they turn people away from their weekly live show which has a new following of retro-mad teenagers.

With an average weekly audience of more than 150,000 in Melbourne (Chartbusting 80s is also broadcast on public stations in Sydney and New Zealand), they are one of C31's top-performing shows. Parrelli has quit hairdressing to work the MC circuit, and this year made her fifth appearance on the Logies red carpet. See the full story