I am a one man thread. I am the lizard king. I can eat flies. I can post whatever the hell I like up!
Okay, forget the Goons and other such half decent fondly remember radio shows, here's some 80s mange rock classics. Ha! Feel my power. Maybe next week I may assemble a Not the Nine O'Clock News montage.
Okay so I promised a Not the Nine O'Clock News special, but having neglected to actually take a photo of my Ayatollah single like some promise-breaking nonce, here is something to keep you all amused until I manage to find the camera and remain sober enough to use it. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present a guide to comedy cross dressing.
Pre mega-star status and still looking a trifle bit dowdy, 'Dame Edna Everage - Housewife Superstar!'
The onset of megalomania is complete, 'Dame Edna Everage - The Sound of Edna'
The UK takes a middle aged Ozzie drag act to its (well padded) bosom, 'Dame Edna Everage - Last Night of the Poms'
If you ever wanted to hear Dame Edna covering Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson track down this mid 80s dance classic 'Dame Edna Everage - The Dame Edna Party Experience'
'Hinge and Bracket - In Concert'
I assume there is a second volume, possibly even a third, who knows? 'Hinge and Bracket - Volume 1'
The shot that inspired the Beatles, 'Hinge and Bracket at Abbey Road'
Hinge and Bracket - 'Dear Ladies'
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 7 2011, 7:53 PM GMTIf you ever wanted to hear Dame Edna covering Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson track down this mid 80s dance classic 'Dame Edna Everage - The Dame Edna Party Experience'
My favourite track on that album is 'I Got You Babe' (a duet with Les Patterson), but then I am very fond of covers of 'I Got You Babe'. Edna has also performed/recorded it with Cher.
Yes he/she does indeed, although I have to say that there is something distinctly odd and unsettling about someone singing a male/female duet with themselves. Anybody else seen Magic with Anthony Hopkins? Jim Davidson duets with himself on 'Come Outside' on the Jim Davidson album up there somewhere.
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 7 2011, 7:53 PM GMT
You'd never guess this was two men in drag, would you?
I wish these were all available on CD - and ridiculously cheap, so I could afford to get them...
Quote: Tim Azure @ March 8 2011, 1:50 PM GMTYou'd never guess this was two men in drag, would you?
Quite! My girlfriend's dad went to school with Patrick Fyffe in Stafford. He was apparently a little bit odd even then...
Quote: Aaron @ March 8 2011, 1:53 PM GMTI wish these were all available on CD - and ridiculously cheap, so I could afford to get them
I know what you mean, it's a really overlooked area of British comedy. I honestly had no idea what was out there until I started poking around. It seems like at one time virtually every comedy act in the country was releasing records. There is no way that all of them are classics, some are frankly dreadful, but a few like the Goons, Monty Python and Not the Nine O'Clock News made them into an art form in their own right and regularly made the charts.
In the days before VHS and DVDs a record was really the only way to capture a bit of the magic of a comedian and listen to their act in your own time whenever you wanted. There is still the occasional release, Ali G, Harry Hill etc but nothing like there used to be. Quite what I'll do when charity shops stop selling vinyl I don't know. Interact with human beings, go out, do stuff, who knows.
Right, now where was that Ayatollah single?
Blimey, just discoverd this on Amzon, that's going on the Wish List immediately!
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 8 2011, 2:35 PM GMTQuite! My girlfriend's dad went to school with Patrick Fyffe in Stafford. He was apparently a little bit odd even then...
I think my point was that they do look like men in drag, at least on the record. I'm worried if you think otherwise...
And my point was they always did.
Perhaps there is a point when you are young, the gullibility event horizon if you will, say around ten years old, after which middle-aged men in frocks will always look and sound like middle-aged men in frocks.
Danny La Rue always looked like a bloke in a dress though, he was a great entertainer and a splendid comedian, but yeah, he only ever looked like a middle-aged man in an elaborate dress, even to a pre-gullibility child.
And from the archive I give you, a selection sadly without the excellent Copacabana LP, which knocks several shades of heavy tear-stained mascara off Barry Manilow's version but which still needs photographing:
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 7 2011, 7:53 PM GMT
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 8 2011, 2:35 PM GMTI honestly had no idea what was out there until I started poking around.
Still on the Hinge and Bracket debate?
They wish!
Quote: Agnes Guano @ March 8 2011, 10:03 AM GMTYes he/she does indeed, although I have to say that there is something distinctly odd and unsettling about someone singing a male/female duet with themselves. Anybody else seen Magic with Anthony Hopkins? Jim Davidson duets with himself on 'Come Outside' on the Jim Davidson album up there somewhere.
I think it's wonderful when a person can perform both parts of a male/female duet, such as Barry Humphries (or even Tiny Tim). Not sure whether Stevie Riks has ever done a male/female duet, but he does a nice duet of George Formby and Motorhead's Lemmy singing Ace of Spades: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EIcmK21_0Q
I think my favourite cross-dressing comedy act would have to be Terry Jones and any of the angry dishevelled ratbags he played in Monty Python.