- The Dame Edna Experience
"The Dame Edna Experience" was a British television comedy talk-show hosted by
Dame Edna Everage (a character played byAustralian satiristBarry Humphries ). It ran for twelve regular episodes, plus two Christmas specials. The first seven aired for the first time in1987 and the next seven in1989 . It was directed byIan Hamilton andAlasdair MacMillan and produced byLondon Weekend Television .Regulars on the program, besides Dame Edna, were her "bridesmaid" Madge Alsop (played by Emily Perry) and Robin Houston who was the announcer, with orchestra conducted and arranged by
Laurie Holloway .Each program featured several celebrity guests, usually three, but some programs included up to eight guests. There would also be other invited "guests" like
Kurt Waldheim andImelda Marcos who once introduced atstage right would fall victim to atrap door or something similar and fail to make it to their chair.The entire series was released on DVD (for Region 1) by BBC Video in June 2004, and can now also be purchased as a complete set including the Christmas specials and the three "An Audience With Dame Edna" specials, plus other material.
The series was released for Region 2 by Network DVD in the UK in 2007, as a 4-disc set. For reasons unknown, the Region 2 release does not include the 1989 Christmas special "The Dame Edna Satellite Experience" that ended the second series and featured
Ursula Andress ,Yehudi Menuhin , andRobert Kilroy-Silk . It does, however, include the one-off 1990 Christmas special "A Night On Mount Edna".Season One Episodes and Guests
* Episode 1, Original Air Date: 12 September 1987.
Sean Connery ,Cliff Richard ,Mary Whitehouse
* Episode 2, Original Air Date: 19 September.Jeffrey Archer ,Joan Rivers ,Demis Roussos
* Episode 3, Original Air Date: 26 September 1987.Larry Hagman ,Arthur Marshall ,Jane Seymour
* Episode 4, Original Air Date: 3 October 1987.Zsa Zsa Gabor ,Germaine Greer ,Nana Mouskouri
* Episode 5, Original Air Date: 10 October 1987.Jerry Hall ,Charlton Heston ,Patrick Lichfield
* Episode 6, Original Air Date: 17 October 1987.John Mills ,Rudolf Nureyev ,Barry Humphries ,Cynthia Payne
* Episode 7, Original Air Date: 26 December 1987.Denis Healey , Lulu,Roger Moore (titled "The Dame Edna Christmas Experience")Season Two Episodes and Guests
* Episode 1, Original Air Date: 4 November 1989.
Chubby Checker ,Douglas Fairbanks Jr .,Ron Reagan (as Ronald Reagan Jr.),Jane Fonda
* Episode 2, Original Air Date: 11 November 1989.Magnus Magnusson ,Liza Minnelli ,Vivienne Westwood
* Episode 3, Original Air Date: 18 November 1989.Edward Heath ,Dolph Lundgren ,Dusty Springfield
* Episode 4, Original Air Date: 2 December 1989.Jason Donovan ,Michael Gambon ,Glenys Kinnock ,Malcolm McDowell ,Antony Sher ,David Suchet ,Tim Pigott-Smith ,Jeffrey Archer
* Episode 5, Original Air Date: 9 December 1989.Lauren Bacall ,Gerald Durrell , Tom Jones,Jeffrey Archer
* Episode 6, Original Air Date: 16 December 1989.Christiaan Barnard ,Tony Curtis ,Grace Jones ,Jeffrey Archer
* Episode 7, Original Air Date: 22 December 1989.Ursula Andress ,Robert Kilroy-Silk ,Yehudi Menuhin (titled "The Dame Edna Satellite Experience")1990 Christmas Special
* "A Night on Mount Edna", Original Air Date: 25 December 1990.
Mel Gibson ,Charlton Heston ,Gina Lollobrigida andJulio Iglesias
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