Dame Edna will headline Glasgow’s Magners International Comedy Festival

Published Friday 26 October 2007 at 10:55 by Thom Dibdin

Dame Edna Everage has signed to headline next year’s Magners Glasgow International Comedy Festival, in what will be her only UK appearance of 2008.

The Australian housewife, created by Barry Humphries OBE, first trod the boards in 1955 in a Melbourne comedy revue. She rose to fame in the UK with a series of TV appearances in the eighties and nineties.

In a personal message to all her Glaswegian fans, she said: “My dear Glaswegian possums! Can you believe it’s been umpteen years since you flocked to the theatre to worship at my shrine? So wait no more my little McPossums. I’m coming back for one night only to spread my message of caring and sharing at that spooky, yet strangely intimate, Clyde auditorium.”

Tommy Sheppard, director of the Scottish Comedy Agency which manages the festival programme told The Stage that he is delighted to have landed Dame Edna.

“We had to play hardball with the agents, but we made a very robust offer for her and she has kindly accepted,” he said. “She is the type of artist we have been trying to land for years and we are delighted that we have got somebody of her calibre.

“Since the festival began in 2003 we have been looking to land a major international artist and she is the biggest one. We did get Joan Rivers last year but I think Dame Edna is Top Trumps on Joan Rivers.”

Dame Edna’s appearance at the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, on Friday, March 21 is her only one scheduled for the UK in 2008. Jimmy Carr, French and Saunders and Frankie Boyle have also been confirmed for the festival, which runs from March 6-23, 2008. The full programme of more than 250 national and international stand-ups, drama, films, kids’ shows and industry workshops will be announced in full in January.