After her death in April 2013, I never thought I’d get to meet Margaret Thatcher. But she made a surprise comeback the following year at the Edinburgh Fringe.
A man with a blouse, skirt and handbag – though maybe not a wig, as I think the hair was real – was Margaret Thatcher: Queen of Soho.
A hundred-odd metres up the road, the same actor was the special guest in a show called Outings. In full Thatcher costume, and with the Thatcher husky voice, he read out the words of different people, including Harvey Milk, the San Francisco activist, imploring gays and lesbians to come out of the closet.
That was kind of surreal, and I asked him about it afterwards.
He said, ‘I thought being Boy George was more surreal!’
A man dressed as a Conservative woman who deepened her voice to sound more masculine, reading out the words of a gay man who dressed liked a woman and said he was bisexual.
Only at Fringe!
