matthew whitehouse – japan
Not everyone who works in British media is crushingly uncool, and certainly not the appropriately handsome editor of The Face, Matthew Whitehouse, who grows ever more beautiful as the years slide by. It’s crazy.
Before switching to the mag trade, Whitehouse fronted indie outfit The Heartbreaks, who reached no. 9 in the Japanese charts with the jangly single Delay, Delay – a spasm of international fame that launched him, briefly, to teen idol status in Shinjuku. When we pressed Whitehouse about this period in his life and ignored three different statements of ‘no comment’, he summarised this time as ‘a great three weeks’. Which, it would be, wouldn’t it?
a1 – indonesia
In the steady torrent of groups unleashed during Y2K-era Boyband Fever, few occupied so strange a space as A1. A British-Norwegian outfit helmed by Steps svengali Tim Byrne, A1 had limited success in the British charts but found themselves as megastars in south-east Asia.
A cursory search for their oeuvre online will near-exclusively show live gigs in the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia: countries where they amassed huge followings, dozens of hit records, and four years straight of packed-out touring gigs.
Sadly, their fame was to garner a more tragic marker in 2001, when four fans died in a crush at a gig in a Jakarta shopping mall. Following several splits, solo efforts and hiatuses, the band have regrouped several times, each time to great acclaim on the shores of the Mekong.
dashan – china
You could not dream of a better way to fall backwards into fame. In 1988, Mark Rowswell, a lanky Canadian student studying at Peking University, was asked by the Chinese state broadcaster to appear in a skit for its New Year variety show. Rowswell was given the role of a sassy peasant, Dashan (or ‘Big Mountain’) who upbraided the henpecks of his scolding wife. Rowswell’s delivery in perfect Mandarin, juxtaposed with his mammoth, pallid frame, amused the Chinese populace so much that he became, overnight, the most famous western man in Asia.
That may sound like hyperbole; it was not, and remained the case for the 30 years of Rowswell’s on-air career. He hosted educational shows, acted in dramas, gave narration for performances of Peter and the Wolf, and was even listed as one of Time magazine’s ‘Leaders for the 21st Century’ in 1999. And we can bet that you hadn’t heard of him until literally right now.
chris de burgh – iran
The Argentina-born, Ireland-raised son of a British diplomat, middle-brow wedding balladeer – and doting father to a Miss World – may seem an unlikely candidate for winding up the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Ministry of Culture. And yet, the Lady In Red crooner announced in 2007 that he was to play a concert in Tehran. Not much gets past this austere organ of the Iranian state, though, as they nipped his act of easy listening subversion in the bud, on the grounds that he hadn’t actually asked permission.
