Pop, rock & opera! 'MY 10 DÍVA VOICES'

Close your eyes and the impersonator will take you on a musical merry-go-round

- Catherine Milford

Bernadette Robinson could sing before she could talk. The daughter of a GP and a nurse in Dandenong, Australia, she was the fourth of seven children.

It was a childhood filled with music - she remembers singing along to shows like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, and with singers like Patsy Cline, Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland.

At three, she could sing Dame Shirley Bassey's Big Spender, and she'd dress up in her mother's nighties and high heels.

"We loved music, but we'd listen to records and go to shows, rather than play it. But I loved singing and performing. I was always the star!"

But it wasn't just music that fascinated Bernadette - she was an impersonator too.

"From early on, I had the ability to catch people's characters," she explains. "People would tell me I sounded like Julie Andrews or Patsy Cline. It's strange, but I can pick up people's accents and their personalities."

Bernadette studied nursing, but quickly realised music was her passion and changed to singing at the Victorian College of Arts. During her career, she's performed in one-woman shows, including Songs for Nobodies and Pennsylvania Avenue, as well as doing cabaret.