The collection features both "The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series Two" and "The Dame Edna Experience: The Christmas Special." The former is a two-disc set that features six programs, boasting interviews with Ronald Reagan, Jr.; Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.; Jane Fonda; Chubby Checker; Magnus Magnusson; Vivienne Westwood; Liza Minnelli; Dusty Springfield; Dolph Lundgren; Edward Heath; Michael Gambon; Jason Donovan; Glenys Kinnock; Lauren Bacall; Gerald Durrell; Tom Jones; Tony Curtis; Grace Jones; Dr. Christiaan Barnard; and Jeffrey Archer. Bonus footage in "The Complete Series Two" includes "Another Audience with Dame Edna," which features the Dame fielding questions from her adoring audience; Edna's 1979 performance of "Disco Matilda"; and conversations with Whoopi Goldberg and Edna creator Barry Humphries.
"The Christmas Special" features two separate holiday shows: "Dame Edna's Christmas Experience" (with guests Sir Les Patterson, Lulu, Denis Healy, Roger Moore and The Wells Cathedral Choir) and "A Night on Mount Edna" (with guests Gina Lollobrigida, Charlton Heston, Mel Gibson and Julio Iglesias). Bonus footage on the holiday set includes the third and final of Edna's audience programs, "One More Audience with Dame Edna Everage"; and Edna's Christmas address in the BBC special "Parkinson at Christmas."
Dubbed Australia's First Lady, Dame Edna is the invention of Barry Humphries, a successful character actor in Europe and Australia as well as an esteemed landscape painter. Some of Humphries' theatrical credits include roles in Waiting for Godot, Oliver! and Maggie May, but his most successful outings have been as Dame Edna, a character he created in 1956. Humphries was given the Order of Australia in 1982 and was endowed with an Honorary Doctorate of Griffith University in Australia in 1994.
"The Dame Edna Experience: The Complete Series Two" retails for $34.98; "The Dame Edna Experience: The Christmas Specials" lists for $19.98. The combined package retails for $79.98.
* Dame Edna: Back with a Vengeance begins previews Nov. 5 at Broadway's Music Box Theatre with an official opening scheduled for Nov. 21.
