'HAVE you got a notebook?' the voice was stern and demanding, although its gender was uncertain.
'No, I have a camera. I came to photograph you,' I replied.
'Well, someone get this down on paper, I don't want any mistakes. Costume credit: Stephen Adnitt.' The name was spelled out so there would be no mistakes and noted down by Alex Ng, lucklessly deputed to be my minder.
The rules had been agreed: I had precisely one minute to photograph Dame Edna Everage in her dressing room. She would have completed her costume change and had her cup of tea, and a packed house would be waiting. No messing about, or I was out.
The shimmering red sequins were resplendent, within them the manner now courteous, but there had been no hiding the nerves and fury that Barry Humphries had displayed minutes before when he left the stage after the first set, featuring a display of obnoxious dribbling by the drunk Sir Les Patterson.
The dressing room walls at the Lyric Theatre are very thin and I had been deposited in the next room while the secret transmogrification took place. No, I could not photograph the metamorphosis. No, I would not be allowed to witness the plastering of heavy stage makeup and the easing onto the head of the mauve rinse wig. I was to wait quietly until I was called.