Life is a drag: Dame Edna brings her biting comedy to Phil

Dame Edna Everage

There’s something innately freeing for a comedian to perform in drag.

For some reasons, a pair of panty hose and a stuffed brassiere that open up whole new avenues, topics that would have been far too taboo or mean-spirited for a guy in a suit and tie.

This is the premise on which Australian comedian Barry Humphries’ career rests. For more than half a century, Humphries has donned sequins, cat-eye glasses and a lilac-colored wig and transformed into the snarkiest woman on the planet.

While not nearly as graphic — it’s a family show after all — Dame Edna is every bit as vicious as the writers of www.gawker.com or The Onion.

Sadly, old age might be catching up to her in the memory department. On a March interview in character, Dame Edna went into a long story about how she was looking forward to Naples because of her long-friendship with Salvador Dali. After reminding her that the Dali museum was actually in St. Petersburg, it took a moment for her to regain her wit. But then she was right back on the wagon.

“People ask me who comes to my shows,” she says. “I tell them ‘gays and grays.’ Sometimes they are taken a back by that. I think people are suckers for political correctness.”

In that case, Dame Edna is no fool.

“I tell it like it is,” she says. “I don’t tip-toe around anything.”

In other words, there’s nothing politically correct about her, even if her observations are a bit dated.

“Eskimos love me,” she says at one point in our interview. “Sarah Palin might be the only Eskimo who doesn’t.”

Think of her as Anne Coulter with a sense of humor and no agenda.

“I’m not angry,” she says. “Politics is angry. I’m more interested in the human race.

Her show is likely to mock international figures along with the guy in the second row whose tie is a little too loud. Everyone is fair game.

“And sometimes the audience absolutely gasps,” she says. “But I say, ‘Why? I’m just telling the truth.’ ”

Other great performances in drag

From Milton Berle to Flip Wilson to Benny Hill, comedians have long gone to drag as an easy way to get laughs.

But some performances go beyond that. Here are four great moments in drag comedy

Terry Jones in “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” 1969-71

While all the Python’s played in drag, Jones was by far the master. He was shrill, often piercingly so. The women he played were never as straightforward has Eric Idle’s or as dramatic as Graham Chapman’s, but were all the more knowing. His portrayal of the waitress in the famous “Spam” sketch far upstages Chapman, even though he gets the iconic line “I don’t like Spam.”

Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari in “Bosom Buddies” 1980-82

The show that made Tom Hanks famous and Peter Scolari, well, the other guy from that show that made Tom Hanks famous. Drag brought out the best of Hanks comedic skills allowing him to be slightly lecherous while still decent at the core — like Bill Murray without the edge.

Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie” 1982

Probably drag comedy’s finest hour, in part because Hoffman doesn’t ham it up too much. He’s genuinely interested in exploring the other side of his character. Not that this is a “Lifetime Special.” There are still plenty of side-splitting moments, particularly Charles Durning’s marriage proposal.

Eddie Izzard in “Dress to Kill”

Izzard would probably get a little cranky at being labeled a drag performer. After all, he’s an “executive transvestite” thank you very much. But on the strictest of definitions of man wearing women’s clothing during the performance, he fits. One of the most underrated stand-up performances ever, Izzard’s routine covers just about every topic imaginable (Stonehenge, “The Great Escape” and JFK, for example) and nothing is sacred.

© 2009 gonaples.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.