“Dame Edna: The Royal Tour” surely takes her audience by surprise. One may ask; how much weirder can a man get, dressed as a woman in a tinted wig, rhinestone glasses big enough to rake leaves and a dress pink enough to make Barbie jealous. A perfect megastar, Dame Edna boasts an English accent that would put the Spice Girls to shame.
However, the pure fun and originality of “Dame” may therefore lead to what audiences have been raving about for so long. Although the show has no structure, script to follow or deep meaning to ponder, its constant whirlwind of satire and offbeat humor have surely led to its success. Best characterized as a night of stand-up-comedy-meets-PMS jokes, “Edna”’s improvisational jabs and stabs at her audience are ultimately what carries the weight of her performance. Randomly picking faces in the crowd, questions are asked ranging from “Is your babysitter an illegal immigrant?” to “What color is your hallway?” At a certain point, she crosses all limits of interactivity and summons several people onstage to help everyone associate her unrestrained remarks with actual faces.
However, although incredibly received by most, the roots of the show’s true humor may prove to be more than offensive and repetitive to others. Centering mainly on the degradation of its audience in such a way that humankind comes out looking like an assembly of supposed failures, the exaggerated description of her achievements are constantly accomplished by belittling the audience or spitting out disrespectful generalizations. At one point during the show, she relates an expression of bewilderment to a typical characteristic of a senior citizen. Senior citizens aside, a few brilliant puns are impossible to ignore, such as defining a margarita with Valium on the rim as a “seniorita.” Although some may find the show vile at times, some one-liners are undeniably hilarious.
Dame Edna’s grotesquely funny accent, preposterous appearance and voice as shrill as a chainsaw leaves her appearing as the product of the Grim reaper and a circus clown. However, as frightening as this may sound, don’t be scared off too quickly. Her degrading jokes mostly aimed at the victims in the first-row people is what leads to her success, for it is the rest of the audience that gets to share in her humor as well. In the end, “Dame Edna” pleases audiences by making them try to convince themselves they are not the losers she proclaims them to be. An evening spent with her can turn out to be a riot indeed, those who prefer to spend their money on a performance of true wit should quickly head in the opposite direction of this schoolyard bully.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
