Adèle is often misnomered as a founder member of Fascinating Aida but, in fact, she joined just nine months after Dillie created the group, by which time FA had already undergone two changes of personnel. Dillie rescued her from a life of drudgery as a secretary, a job she had taken to escape the drudgery of being a civil servant. However, she was thoroughly prepared for the life theatrical, as she had gained a BA Hons in Drama and Theatre Arts at the University of Birmingham some ten years previously. Unfortunately, she then failed to procure an Equity card, which was a requirement of working in the industry back then. Hence the years of toil in the civil service and the back office. As hinted at in paragraph one, within less than a year of launching as a group, Fascinating Aïda had started losing sopranos with a regularity reminiscent of Spinal Tap’s drummers. Fortunately, Adèle was a contralto and knew a regular job when she saw it and has never strayed from the FA ranks. Along with Dillie, she has co-written most of FA’s lyrics during the ensuing decades. Alas, in all that time she has singularly failed to learn a musical instrument or to master tap dancing. Outside of her work with FA, she has toured the UK in various minor musicals and appeared on the London fringe in some major ones. In 2018 she performed a sellout solo show, SONGS OF DISAPPOINTMENT, DEPRESSION AND DEATH, at the Edinburgh Fringe with her MD Dean Austin, her first solo show for twenty-seven years. She has graced the silver screen on two occasions and made the occasional appearance on television, usually playing unpleasant characters who commit GBH or murder. Her episode of NEW TRICKS, THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON, gets repeated every so often on the Drama channel and her episode of THE ROMANOFFS, entitled THE ONE THAT HOLDS EVERYTHING, can still be seen on Amazon Prime. Most recently, she has become the latest incarnation of MAJOR TAMASAN, a Time Lord in the Big Finish audio Doctor Whoniverse. Major Tamasan also kills people. All of this is a far cry from how she imagined her performing life would be, sparkling with wit in a Restoration comedy or sipping cocktails in a Noel Coward play. But she has no complaints. Adèle is a patron of Humanists UK and, for a very short time, was also a humanist wedding celebrant, but performing work got in the way and she had to give it up. She has recently become the proud owner of a static caravan on the Sussex coast. In her spare time she posts photographs of modern buildings taken from interesting angles on Facebook and Instagram (dameadeleanderson) Her Damehood was conferred on her by Dillie somewhere in 1986 in the outback somewhere near Alice Springs. Her disregard of fashion in the teeth of extreme heat, the battered hat tied firmly beneath her chin, the gung-ho willingness to go everywhere and anywhere regardless of physical comfort, small killer beasties and spiny vegetation, and above all the air of reginal dignity, reminded Dillie of the fabled women explorers of yore. She was dubbed Dame Adèle from that moment and now everyone calls her The Dame. Surely it can only be a short time till Her Majesty’s Government formalizes the honour?

Adèle Anderson is an Olivier Award-nominated singer and actress, a distinguished supporter of the British Humanist Association, and one third of the internationally acclaimed and terribly British satirical singing cabaret act, Fascinating Aida. Born in 1952, she transitioned in 1973 to become Adèle. She worked as a woman for a time before coming out as transgender. In a review for Fascinating Aida’s 1985 Edinburgh Fringe show, the Financial Times reviewer wrote, “You could have fooled me that the one with the smoky brown voice isn’t a man in drag”. The press would not let the story go, and went as far as to call her parents in the middle of the night. Rather than deny it, Anderson came out as trans in an interview, and carried on performing with Fascinating Aida. In her career, Anderson has been an affirmative role model for trans visibility. In the film Company Business (1991) she played a Marlene impersonator in a Berlin drag bar. On the trans love story Different For Girls (1996) she was a special advisor. As an activist, Anderson stands for human rights across the board. In an interview for the British Humanist Association, she said, “I do not wish to prevent anyone from practising their religion, no matter how bizarre or ludicrous I may find it, so long as it does not impinge on my right not to do so, nor to have to embrace any aspect of it. ‘Live and let live’ is my motto. I only wish that all ‘believers’ would adhere to that, too.” She continues to perform with Fascinating Aida.

Adèle Anderson specialises in cabaret and musical theatre and is best known as a member of the internationally acclaimed cabaret group Fascinating Aida, founded in 1983. She has also appeared on TV, film and radio, writes lyrics, and has directed shows.