Delightfully bizarre (in a peculiarly British way) and a spectacular hoot, Dame Edna Everage is a singular woman: a marvelously charismatic Australian housewife-cum-megastar, as she herself will inform you if given half a chance. She's also a huge put-on, of course, the alter ego of comedian Barry Humphries and something of an institution everywhere in the English-speaking world except for the United States. In 1987, "Dame Edna" invented a "new kind" of talk show, one in which the guests were both in on the joke and the butt of it at the same time. Some of the celebs will confound even the most devoted Anglophile, but it doesn't matter: the six episodes compiled here are all about Edna--her wacky wigs, her outrageous gowns (all designed by her son, Kenneth), her torrid affair with her own ab fab self. True, this lovefest is occasionally interrupted by the arrival of some superstar guest--Charlton Heston, Rudolf Nureyev, Sean Connery, Zsa Zsa Gabor, etc.--but you can never be sure who will actually get onstage, because this is also a send-up of the celebrity chat show, and those who displease Edna or are boring may get the boot before they've barely made an appearance. DVD extras include a 1992 clip of Edna "interviewing" Humphries, Edna performing her signature tune "Niceness," and the bonus program An Audience with Dame Edna Everage. Granted, the Dame Edna “experience” is a one-joke pony, but it's a good joke. Recommended. (M. Johanson)
The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series One
BBC, 2 discs, 263 min., not rated, DVD: $34.98 September 6, 2004
The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series One
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