The absolutely fabulous one-man show full of divas
WHILE Ceri Dupree ( pictured) might impersonate some of the biggest divas on screen and stage, he has never had occasion to be a diva himself. Even when the situation calls for it, like that time when an airline lost his luggage on his way home to Wales from South Africa.
He arrived home safely, though his many costumes made their way to Amsterdam, but he didn’t throw a hissy fit “because there was nothing I could do,” he explained in a telephonic interview.
“I used to lose my temper, but I’ve learnt it doesn’t get you anywhere. I have learnt to see the funny side in everything,” he added.
Dupree visits South Africa again next month for The Fabulous Ceri Dupree Show with more than 20 bags in tow, and if some of them don’t make it, he will turn it into a joke and put on a different costume.
He refers to himself as a “female impersonator” because that is exactly what he does: “It’s different from the great drag queen acts out there with their exaggerated make-up or pantomime appearances.”
At 17 he was wearing a suit on stage, telling jokes and doing impersonations “but it wasn’t brilliant, it wasn’t a great act,” he says.
He went to a fancy dress party (“which I loved then, but hate now. It’s like a busman’s holiday”) dressed as a character from a ’50s UK TVshow because finding her yellow jacket and white skirt was easy. He won first prize, had a few drinks and grabbed the MC’s mic to do an impersonation.
He put that act into his show and then added Shirley Bassey, Tina Turner and it was all just a bit of fun until a friend pointed out that other people doing the same thing were miming, whereas he was not.
“Some of them were great acts, but not my bag because I don’t like miming. I’ve seen some funny ones, though. So, I moved to London and added all these different females.”
The UK-based comedy female impersonator has probably done about 80 female characters ranging from soap opera stars to politicians and entertainers over just more than 30 years: “Some come into vogue, some don’t last.”
Some just last, like Dolly Parton, or “you can do Marilyn Monroe and an 18-year-old would know who she was, but would that 18-year-old know Marlene Dietrich?”
The success of a character in the show isn’t predicated on foreknowledge, though, like his dad loves his Bjork impersonation, but has no clue who the singer actually is: “But, he finds it funny and that’s the main thing; is it funny?
“Like, Kylie Minogue, it just doesn’t work. I quite like Kylie, but there’s nothing to draw on, nothing to make it funny. Whereas Lady Gaga, you could just wear a chandelier up your bum and people would know it and it’s great.”
He removed his Amy Winehouse impersonation when the singer died mid-2011 and only recently put her back in again: “But, I don’t do it as over-the-top as I used to. You can see in people’s face, certain things you just don’t do.”
Another thing he is doing that he never used to, is appear as himself in a suit at the end of the show. Not in every show, just when it seems the right move. “Like most performers, you hide behind the characters and it’s not real; it’s just acting. But when it’s all stripped away and I’m there in a suit, I used to think, ‘I have no personality in a suit, I’m boring and shy’. So, it took a while to build the confidence to do it.”
at Cape Town’s Artscape Arena, from February 9 to 13 at 8pm, then Joburg’s Theatre on the Square, from February 16 to 20.