'Ally McBeal' gets a purple rinse

By MICHELLE MANELIS

If a megastar housewife from Melbourne couldn't save Ally McBeal (9.30pm, TV2), no one could.

Producers of the ailing comedy-drama put Dame Edna Everage among the Boston lawyers in a last-ditch bid to boost ratings. It failed, and creator David E. Kelley decided that the fifth series, now screening here, would be the last.

But, as New Zealand viewers will see over the remaining 10 episodes, the great Dame ensures that the show goes out with a quirky kind of flourish.

Dame Edna (aka Barry Humphries) was originally cast in a single storyline as a woman sued for sexual harassment, but she added zip to the action and producers made her a regular.

Her character, Claire Otoms - who shares Edna's over-the-top dress sense and fondness for acidic one-liners - now works as an office administrator in the law firm.

"We fell in love with Dame Edna - how can you not?" says producer Alice West.

"David [E. Kelley] found that she was very easy to write for, and she's such a great character to enter our world, so we had to keep her."

Declares Dame Edna: "I'm one of the pioneer Australian actors to make it in Hollywood.

"I'd always felt that I was really too Australian, and it was only quite recently, about three years ago, when I became a Broadway star that I realised I'd arrived.

"Now that I'm a series regular, it's upwards from here on.

"I think its lovely that they've woven me into every episode, but everything is under wraps, as they say in Hollywood, so I can't give away too much."

Dame Edna is the latest in a string of guest stars recruited to revive Ally McBeal.

Robert Downey jnr helped to keep the show afloat in its fourth series, until he was dropped after yet another drug bust.

His departure hurt the show - when he left, 2.2 million viewers turned off.

The show's audience peaked in 2000 when it was followed by 9 million viewers. (The highest single-rated episode was during Anne Heche's stint on the show).

Its audience is now fewer than 7 million as it struggles to compete against the main opposition sharing its US timeslot, Everybody Loves Raymond.

The casting of pop star-turned-actor Jon Bon Jovi as a builder who becomes Ally's love interest was another attempt to find more audience appeal.

"Little Jon's adorable, isn't he?" says Dame Edna, "I have a bit of love interest too.

"I can't tell you who it is," she whispers conspiratorially. "He's a lovely man, although he wouldn't have been my choice.

"I actually wanted Mel, but he's a bit old now.

"The producers suggested Larry Hagman for me, and I said, 'Oh no!' "I love Larry, he's an old friend of mine, but he's had a liver transplant and I had enough trouble with my late husband Norm and his prostate transplant.

"Up and down all night he was, and not in a way we ladies like."

Dame Edna has enjoyed success in a variety of careers, including television host, children's book illustrator, social anthropologist, and investigative journalist.

She has performed stage shows in London and New York, and her talk shows include An Audience with Dame Edna, Another Audience with Dame Edna and The Dame Edna Experience, which was aired worldwide.

"I attribute my longevity - a lovely word - to not caring," she says.

"I'm sort of an amateur in the true sense of the word: I do love what I do. I just have fun. I don't do anything that bores me and I love doing a TV show because I have company.

"I'm often quite lonely when I do my stage shows, even though the audience have become friends of mine.

"I think Ally MacBeal works, because when you watch it, you imagine yourself in that office. I think its given new hope to yuppies."

Dame Edna is clearly the most flamboyant personality on the show.

"I've given the ladies fashion advice," she says. "I thought the girls looked a bit dowdy at first, but then I realised they were all wearing designer clothes.

"But I'm the only person on the show who has clothing specially made.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but the clothes make Ally MacBeal (Calista Flockhart) look very thin. I tend to give the show a bit of volume.

"They all look like little skinny sculptures and I'm like a great big [painter Fernando] Botero stepping into their midst."

Dame Edna, born and raised in the Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds, claims she has helped other Australians, both professionally and personally.

"Nicole's parents brought her to me when she was a little girl. I gave her her first acting lesson on my kitchen table," she recalls.

"Nicole, she stood up on the table, and she was dreadful! But that was years ago.

"Lately, she's been crying a little on my shoulder [over her marriage breakup].

"She said to me, 'Edna, it's lovely to cry on your shoulder. I could never ever cry on Tom's shoulder because he had to stand on a ladder'."

Edna also has a regular advice column on etiquette in Vanity Fair.

"I'd like to give Russell Crowe some advice," she says. "He's adorable and talented, but he's behaving a little bit naughtily.

"I think it's a case of too much, too soon, and I'd like to give him a little smack on the bottom.

"I'm sure there are women all over the world who would join me."