Life's a drag?

Oooh, that was luvverly - the most traditional happy Christmas I've had in years. And now I'm about to set off for Liverpool to do it all again with family and friends up there - hoorah! While I'm away, please have fun unwrapping this (below); your comments, as always, would be most appreciated. And hey! Enjoy the last drags of 2008 (yup, every pun intended), woncha?

Panto season is upon us. Across the land, middle aged men are dressing up as women for the delight and titillation of families who love to see one of our Great British Traditions dragged out of the closet - drag, of course, being the operative word. Okay, Aladdin’s Widow Twankey may be a very distant (and rather less salubrious) relative of Brighton’s beloved Christmas cabaret star Wanda Wankey, but they more or less share the same wardrobe. Whichever way you look at is, there really is nothing like a Dame.

“Why can’t a woman be more like a man?” asked Professor Higgins as he crooned his way through ‘A Hymn to Him’ in the 1964 musical ‘My Fair Lady’, bemoaning the dirth of plain-talking, practical, emotion-free women. But 44 years on, his dreams have come true. Many women have learned that you can’t smash the glass ceiling wearing heels, a puffball skirt and a feather boa. But many also believe that attaining the illusive size zero while maintaining a surgically-enhanced 48G rack is worth risking their lives for, even though any initial acclaim for their hard work is swiftly replaced by the confused disdain of the men who suddenly see them, ironically, as unobtainable sluts. Similarly, those who don the leopard print T-shirt/mini skirt/teetering thigh boot combo much vaunted as ‘The December Must-Have Outfit’ in the current issue of Vogue soon discover that, away from those glossy pages, the term ‘party girl’ has a very different meaning. Put simply, the politics that surround being an authentic, womanly woman (glamour and brains – such a heady combination!) have become very, very confused. Consequently, men handle it far better.

Shirley Bassey, Liza Minnelli, Barbara Streisand: if you want to see the classic divas – women who don’t give a flying frou-frou about how threatened they make men feel - at their very best, go and see a drag act (as much as we love the originals, a holiday in Vegas is a lot to pay for an hour in their company). While you’re there, you’ll probably also discover exactly why the current crop of young pretenders just don’t have what it takes - once you’ve seen Clarissa Hole give us her Cheryl Cole, you’ll wish Girls Aloud would shut up and let the pros take over. As for Kylie, Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Leona Lewis and even Sarah Palin (vile, but in this context, irresistible): you know they’re true contemporary icons because the nation’s top female impersonators impersonate them. And, in true post-modern zeitgeist style, our favourite preening popsicles pay public homage in return; if the thought of Kylie dressed as a man dressed as a woman confuses you, you clearly weren’t in the audience on her last tour. But such a crossover is hardly a new twist. Coronation Street, the nation’s favourite soap, is a veritable hotbed of drag-bag inspiration. Who did Rita Fairclough base her original sense of style on if not cross-dressing veteran Danny LaRue? Where would Lily Savage have been without Bet Lynch as a role model? And if Alec Gilroy’s close connection to Ada Shufflebotham doesn’t ultimately prove my point, the Hailey Cropper storyline will.

So, if female impersonators are a Great British Tradition, this is one institution I want full membership to. I want all the false eyelashes, fake fur and fishnet stockings I can get my hands on. I want to spend my evenings belting out ‘I Will Survive’ in front of a sequined curtain, surrounded by dry ice. I want to be the ‘exasperating, irritating, vacillating, calculating, agitating, maddening, infuriating hag!’ that so riled Professor Higgins, not the neat, sweet, unchallenging dullard that magazines like ‘Woman’s Own’ wants all women to be. But these days, only gentlemen seem to have what it takes to be real ladies. This year, I recommend that you watch the Queen’s Christmas speech very closely; it’s my bet that she’s handed the crown over to Paul O’Grady.