Millsy and Rhonda, king and queen of Melbourne’s wholesome Moomba
Glitzy Sydney might have its naughty Mardi Gras, but Melbourne, thank goodness, still has its immensely popular and determinedly wholesome Moomba, complete with a king and queen.
Melbourne’s queen this year is Rhonda Burchmore, the singer, dancer and actor who has been so ubiquitous on stage and screen you might have imagined she had been Moomba Queen before, in the manner that Bert Newton once felt like Moomba’s King forever, despite having been crowned just once, in 2014.
The king this year, we are excited to learn, is Rob Mills.
Robert Mills and Rhonda Burchmore are the king and queen of Moomba.Credit:Joe Armao
His coronation seems almost pre-ordained, given that the founders of the festival back in the early 1950s thought, with touching naivety, that Moomba meant, in some unspecified Indigenous language, “getting together and having fun”.
The new Moomba King is better known as Millsy, the singer and actor who shot to fame 20 years ago when, as an emerging singing star in the first series of Australian Idol, he and American heiress Paris Hilton emerged to the popping of cameras after getting together and having fun in a hotel room during the 2003 Melbourne Cup carnival.
Millsy’s autobiography, Putting on a Show, subsequently revealed in some detail how he had got together and had quite a deal of fun with all manner of people.
Burchmore has her own autobiography. She called it Legs 11, in honour of her celebrated physique.
Millsy and Burchmore, splendidly enthroned and gorgeously crowned, will lead Moomba back into Melbourne’s heart from Thursday, March 9 to Monday, March 13.
The pandemic forced the festival’s cancellation in 2021 – the first time since 1955 it had not occupied its traditional March timetable incorporating the Labour Day long weekend. After an outcry, a pared-back version – Moomba 2.0 – did go ahead.
Melbourne hipsters and Sydney smarties have long enjoyed lampooning Moomba as a slightly daggy leftover from another age, of course. All those floats parading through the streets, the Birdman Rally on the murky Yarra, the waterskiing and the outdoor arts events.
And yet, it remains the most popular of Melbourne’s – and Australia’s – free community festivals.
More than 100,000 people traditionally cram the streets to watch the procession alone, and attendance over the four days is counted in the millions.
Besides, things haven’t always been perfectly wholesome: eyebrows and the ire of the righteous were raised when in 2001, a French troupe and Melbourne’s Snuff Puppets featured floats with naked participants covered in body paint.
Nothing like that could happen this year. Could it?
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