Audiences gaga for men in women's clothes

Jason Donovan in Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Photo / AP

Brace yourself. Cross-dressing looks set to be rampant on stage and screen as a slate of actors slip out of their shirts and trousers into something a lot more shapely.

Joining La Cage Aux Folles in London's West End is the dragtastic Priscilla Queen of the Desert, starring Jason Donovan, while in the coming months on the big screen we will see Jude Law as a transvestite supermodel in Sally Potter's Rage, American actor Tyler Perry as a black matriarch in Madea Goes to Jail and Liev Schreiber donning a dress as security guard Vilma in Ang Lee's offbeat comedy Taking Woodstock.

Why the sudden proliferation? Well, let's face it: men in drag are a recession-proof form of entertainment.

The fact that two standout performances from the BBC's Let's Dance for the recent Comic Relief charity telethon were Robert Webb of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb dancing What a Feeling from Flashdance and Paddy McGuinness and Keith Lemon recreating Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey's swansong routine from Dirty Dancing shows how audiences go gaga for men in frocks.

In the US, the film Madea Goes to Jail, in which writer-actor-director Tyler Perry dons a fat suit to play hefty Mabel (aka Madea) Simmons, has grossed more than US$75 million ($127 million).

After Eddie Murphy's Norbit and Martin Lawrence's Big Momma's House films, the premise of a black comic actor in drag seems familiar, but its success shows not only an appetite for more, but approval for the family values at the film's core. Plus it's funny.

From an actor's point of view, it's not hard to see the appeal of dragging up. As Dustin Hoffman said in Tootsie: "It happens to be one of the great acting challenges an actor can have."

Last month Douglas Hodge picked up an Olivier award for his performance as Albin/Zaza in La Cage Aux Folles. His lasting achievement was arguably his tender portrayal of an ageing, ego-bruised gay man and father. The point is, for all their frivolity, the best drag roles, like Albin, are meaty.

"It's an adult part," says Jason Donovan of his role of Tick in Priscilla, reminding us that apart from the show-stopping costumes and dance routines, this new musical addresses such issues as homophobia, bereavement and self-empowerment.

As for Jude Law, his performance as Minx in Rage, a murder mystery set in the world of high fashion, is reportedly the best thing about it. Not only is Law convincing as a woman but critics who attended the premiere in Berlin say he makes a darned sexy one.

If he manages to unsettle concepts of gender and beauty, titillating as much as beguiling audiences when the film opens, we might be indebted. For Law will have reinvested drag with its original capacity not just to entertain, but to shock and even awe.

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