First Review: The Dame Edna Treatment

Is there anything new that Dame Edna can tell us we don’t already know? Probably not.

Does it matter? Definitely not.

The housewife megastar could read a shopping list aloud and I’d be perfectly mesmerised. In fact, she’d probably fill it with innuendo and tell us how it illustrates more about ourselves than was ever thought possible, such is the precision of her performance.

After a long break from TV (Ally McBeal notwithstanding), the iconic Dame Edna Everage (the comic creation of ex-pat satirist Barry Humphries) is back on British telly in The Dame Edna Treatment. Set in her own ITV studio/spa, Everage is a colonic hostess adored by an audience suitably attired en masse in white coats. The set is festooned with flashy lights, stairways, chat-show chairs, Edna statues and gladiola trimmings. Replacing evergreen but glum bridesmaid Madge Allsop is Edna’s daughter, the plump and stone-faced Valmay. She’s lumbered with electronic tags on each ankle, “so we always know how far apart they are”.

The show’s format is wide-open, giving Barry Humphries the opportunity to do what he does best -hold court. Celebrity interviews are interspersed with filmed sequences of guests in flotation tanks and being massaged. After Nine re-shuffled the eps for Australian viewers, the ‘first’ show (which I haven’t seen) has Shane Warne, Alan Alda and Sophie Ellis Bextor. More exciting is the promise of Matt Lucas, David Walliams, Susan Sarandon, kd lang, Shirley Bassey and Deborah Harry later in the series. In cameo roles are Patrick Stewart, Ronnie Corbett, Mr Bean and Richard O’Brien.

And of course Sir Les Patterson also has a few drooling guest spots with the likes of Bollywood bombshell Shilpa Shetty and Carmen Electra.

Glamazon Sigourney Weaver looked stunning in her classy chat with Edna, deflecting requests for a fifth Alien movie. Poor Mischa Barton, although presenting as inoffensively sweet, is virtually a deer-in-headlights, which makes for a perfect Edna guest. Unlike Parkinson, who allows his guests to take centre-stage, the interviewees under Edna’s scrutiny are effectively playing the straight man to her razor-sharp wit. American guests often struggle with this ‘complicated’ task, generally unable to comprehend what’s hit them; or, more foolishly, they sometimes try to compete.

The intense Michael Bolton takes it way too seriously, despite Edna introducing him as having had eight hits…. “on his website”. When he duets with Edna on the forgettable ‘Time, Love and Tenderness’ he must think he’s at Carnegie Hall. The showman in Humphries all but abandons the lyrics and melody with consummate ease, and nobody but Bolton seems to care.

The package works effortlessly for Dame Edna. And as I watched a spirited Martin Sheen donning the purple wig and the gaudy frock I was reminded that Everage is many things, but a drag queen isn’t one of them. She’s fifty years in the making and she’s ours. She’s Edna.

The Dame Edna Treatment premieres 7:30pm Saturday on Nine.