Six degrees of separation from comedian John Robertson

John Robertson - the Australian comedian, not the former Nottingham Forest and Scotland football ace - found true love where he perhaps least expected it. In July 2003, the now 31-year-old (who will bring his stand-up show to the Take Out Comedy Club stage for three nights this week) auditioned for a reality-television singing contest with a flailing and spasming performance so spectacularly bad it caught the attention of his future wife as she lay in hospital, recovering from a near-fatal car crash. Robertson's audition also left the Australian Idol judging panel shell-shocked, apparently giving nightmares to the "nice judge", Marcia Hines …

At the tender age of 16, Boston-born Hines travelled halfway around the world to Australia, a place she has called home for more than 40 years, to star in the stage musical Hair. During the show's run, Hines learned she was pregnant, but the 17-year-old returned to the stage a mere nine days after giving birth, in September 1970. Hines is cousin to both retired US Army general Colin Powell and the "wildest party animal ever", singer Grace Jones …

With a penchant for public nudity (well, wouldn't you, with a body like that?), the Jamaican-born performer received a lifetime ban from Florida's Walt Disney World in 1998 after she flashed her breasts on stage in front of a very young crowd. These days, the 68-year-old might only show off her sculpted cheekbones, but her days of partying were legendary. "We all had our fun, and now and then we went really too far," she has admitted. During the heady late 70s, Jones lived and partied in Paris with roommate Jerry Hall …