Middlesex-born Davro, 64, has been keeping audiences in stitches since the early Eighties. Best known as an impressionist, Bobby is also a gag-telling comedian, an actor, and an accomplished pantomime star – a veritable show business renaissance man.
Despite the hard-hitting machine gun rat-a-tat of his joke delivery style, Davro – real name Robert Nankeville – wears his heart on his sleeve. It’s not his place to talk about girlfriend Vicky Wright’s medical problems, he rightly says, but he adds, “I love her so much. She’s a special person.”
Vicky’s father was Wolves and England football legend Billy Wright, and her mother was Beverley Sisters pop star Joy Beverley. “They were the Posh & Becks of the 1950s. Vicky did a stage show about her father in October. She did so well, she filled the theatre in Cannock.”
The last few years have been rough for Bobby. He lost his beloved father, former Olympian Bill Nankeville, in January 2021 aged 95, and lockdown hit him hard.
“Covid wiped me out,” he says. “I had to lose my business, I had to sell up and move home.”
Davro’s work diary is fuller now. He is looking forward to starting pantomime this month with the eager anticipation of a child posting their first letter to Santa. “I love panto,” he says. “I can make whole families smile. You have to do material that the adults will get but the kids won’t. It’s very different from my normal act and I’m very proud of what I do.”
Bobby will be playing Buttons in Cinderella in Dartford, Kent, with former Union J pop star George Shelley as Prince Charming and newcomer Ellie Jane Grant as Cinders.
They should be worried. In previous pantos, Davro has dropped toy spiders on Cinderella mid-show.
For Dick Whittington at Southend, he sent his dog – trained to lick its own privates on command – on stage to do just that during the leading lady’s big romantic number.
This year? “I do a routine that started as an accident,” he says, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “I fell over in a kangaroo costume on stage and as I was trying to get up it started to look a bit rude.”
“I’m not knocking modern comedians. I like Lee Mack, Peter Kay, Graham Norton. I loved Lee Evans. Michael McIntyre makes me laugh. Alan Carr, Jimmy Carr…I even like Frankie Boyle, because he’s as outrageous as Jim Davidson in a different way.
Davro mimics McIntyre and John Bishop – “a lovely bloke” – in his act. “It’s important for me to be as contemporary as possible,” says Bobby, who was the first TV impressionist to pull off Julian Clary. “But I won’t apologise for stuff I did in the 80s and 90s because it was all acceptable then.
Davro’s talent for impressions was first noticed at school – he got the cane for mimicking his headmaster. As a trainee manager at a department store, he made staff chuckle with his Are You Being Served take-offs.
He was working at his father’s Davro Discount Stores when he decided to go semi-pro in the late 70s. His stage name Davro, taken from the shop was a contraction of his and his brother David’s names – Dav from David, Ro from Robert (Bobby).
His big break came when he stormed ITV’s Live At Her Majesty’s in 1983. This led to a six-year run of hit ITV Saturday night shows including Bobby’s Sketch Pad and Bobby Davro On The Box.
He excelled at the Royal Variety show in 1991, but his 1992 BBC1 series Rock With Laughter was axed after critical flak. He’s since moved on to ‘reality’ shows like The Games, Dancing On Ice and Celebrity Big Brother.
Bobby has just filmed Celebrity Mastermind, answering questions on Gilbert O’Sullivan to raise money for the Woking & Sam Beare hospice which cared for his late mother, Janet.
“The late 80s and early 90s were the golden years,” he says ruefully. “That’s when I earned the most. I had a beautiful home at 40…then my marriage went south…”
He and former model Trudi Jameson, the glamorous mother of his three grown-up daughters, divorced in 2003.
Their split shattered his confidence but Bobby bounced back when he joined EastEnders as Shirley Carter’s love interest, Vinnie Monks.
“I should have got a Bafta for kissing Shirley,” he quips, adding quickly, “a joke, Linda Henry’s lovely.”
On stage, his singing impressions include Sting, George Michael, Elton John, Billy Joel, Tom Jones and Julio Iglesias.
“As soon as I did their presidents, they took offence. ‘Who does this limey think he is?’.”
When he isn’t performing, Davro loves fishing, playing snooker and spending quality time with his daughters. A devout atheist, he has a serious side.
