Out In The Mountains : Arts - Dazzling Drag Dame DVD

    According to the press release, "wherever the eyes of the world are focused, wherever history is in the making - SHE is there. In the corridors of power, behind closed doors, she is the one the leaders follow."
     Hillary Clinton? Madeline Albright? Britney Spears? No, the diva being celebrated here is Dame Edna Everage, the Australian sensation who became famous hosting talk shows on the British Broadcasting Company.
     Dame Edna, as portrayed by her creator, Barry Humphries, carries on the great television tradition of garrulous drag queens. Witty, irreverent, sharp-tongued, and dressed to the nines, Dame Edna always outshines her victims - or as they like to call themselves, her interviewees.
     And outshining the stars featured on the newly released DVD The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series One is no easy task. The celebrities featured on this collection of shows from 1987 include Charlton Heston, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Jane Seymour and Larry Hagman. Admittedly, some of these stars shone brighter in 1987 than they do now, but trust me, at the time, they were big deals.
     Since comedy is hard to appreciate on one's own, I invited some friends over to watch the first two episodes with me. Gary and Real, as I shall call them (conveniently, since those are their real names) are a forty-something couple who live just a few houses down from me. Also joining us was a 19-year-old gay man whom I shall call "the 19-year-old-gay man" in the interest of increasing the likelihood that this article will be read by guys searching the internet for the term "19-year-old gay man."
     The DVD starts with a ten-minute introduction by Dame Edna in which she sings her own praises. The joke, of course, is that she's a complete narcissist who sees herself as the center of the universe. Unfortunately, she makes the joke for far longer than its thin premise warrants.
     "The governments of many countries have placed this DVDs in their time capsules," she tells us. "It's a new kind of talk show." She describes herself as an "Australian housewife" who was "born with a marvelous charisma. I found I could get along with all kinds of people, celebrities, nonentities - you know, people like you..."
     However, things get considerably better when the first show begins. Emerging down a fabulous staircase in a glittering gown, Dame Edna clearly owns the stage. In the second episode, her costume is even more spectacular - a dress with blinking eyes embroidered over her ample bosom.
     Dame Edna can be counted on for hilarious monologues and terrific celebrity interviews. In the first episode, she makes butch Sean Connery blush with her outrageous flirting. In the second, she accomplishes the not-easy task of outtalking Joan Rivers. Always, she says the kind of outrageous things that only a drag queen can get away with.
     Unfortunately, the shows also feature interviews with lesser celebrities who are probably unknown to American audiences. None of us had heard of guests like Mary Whitehouse, Demis Roussos, Cliff Richard or Jeffrey Archer. Later shows feature equally obscure subjects including Arthur Marshall, Sir John Mills and Cynthia Payne. While Dame Edna was sometimes funny in these encounters, much of the humor depended on knowing who these people were and what made them famous. We didn't.
     So, how did the crowd like the show? On a scale of one to ten, my friends Gary and Real gave Dame Edna a seven. As did I. Surprisingly, the youngest of us, the 19-year-old gay man, gave the show an eight, which surprised me - I would have imagined that what seemed dated to us would seem positively ancient to him. But then again, maybe he's seen fewer funnier drag queens than we have. While we all laughed heartily at sections, too much of the series was too British in-jokey to earn our unqualified recommendations.
     Like every DVD out there, this one includes tons of "bonus" material that I can't imagine anyone who isn't bedridden ever having time to watch. While "An Audience with Dame Edna Everage," in which she answers questions from an audience made up entirely of celebrities, sounds fun, I don't know that we need "Dame Edna on the Dame Edna Experience," a video of her singing her own theme song, or - not one - but two interviews from 1992.
     Dame Edna says "I think if you can't laugh at yourself, you could be missing the joke of the century." And while you'll undoubtedly laugh at Dame Edna, there are some dead patches, too.
     If you've enjoyed Dame Edna in other settings, or if you're a particular fan of British or drag culture (don't the two often seem to collide?), you might want to pick up this DVD. Otherwise, this is probably more diva than you'll need.

Scott Sherman drools over divine drag divas in Richmond when his husband is off defending marriage and his son is sleeping.

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