Rolf Harris, Royal Festival Hall, review Erroneously, I anticipated that a Rolf Harris audience would be full of stooped senior citizens still reeling from the death of vaudeville, but at 82, he continues to reach across the generations. The Festival Hall was packed with small children, great-grandfathers, parents and teenagers, many of whom spent the show yelling out how much they adored him. The bomb-proof Antipodean has been around since the fledgling days of British television in the 1950s, and made records with George Martin before he became the "Fifth Beatle." He's a far better painter than his joking around with pots of emulsion and house-painting brushes would have you believe, and he seems to be on permanent attachment to the royal family, popping up constantly during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. As a performer, he wears blaringly loud shirts in pink and aquamarine, while exuding the nerveless nonchalance of the dyed-in-the-wool old pro. He banters with hecklers, he demonstrates how he makes those rhythmic dog-breathing noises and he jokes about Essex Girls, all in that chortling tone which suggests a world of permanent sunlit adolescence. He paints too, whipping up a splash-and-dash image of Aussie landmark Ayers Rock and chasing it down with a song called Raining On The Rock. His band (a quintet sometimes augmented by a didgeridoo) potter along behind him with well-grooved ease, unperturbed when Harris suddenly stops for a chat with the audience or forgets the words. Harris will never feature in a critics' list of classic singles, but he has released a batch of songs that have become as familiar as Tower Bridge or Hovis. Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport has frozen forever a particular cartoon image of Australians, and he treated us to additional versions in Russian, Japanese and set to the tune of Land Of Hope And Glory. Two Little Boys has an emetic effect on some listeners, but it did give him his sole UK chart-topper. Sun Arise, a primitive blueprint for World Music, was once sung by Rolf on TV with messrs Page and Plant from Led Zeppelin. They must have been tickled by his satirical version of Stairway To Heaven, boosted tonight by a walk-on by a glittery "Miss Given." Is all this a job for a younger man? Rolf obviously doesn't think so.