Ann Donald meets Danny La Rue, the dame who blazed the trail for female impersonators and who remains the acknowledged mistress of glitz and glam

I am trapped amid the Woodbine Generation. Trapped in a mass cross-handed sway-a-thon with the rest of row D mouthing the words to ''Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do''. Daisy doesn't answer but we're too busy hooting away at double entendres - ''it means you can take it both ways'' - dispensed in saucy fashion by a Dame in a #2000 glamour wig and a sizzler of a #4000 gown. With a showbiz swish we're on to reminisce with Judy Garland's Over The Rainbow and an unsolicited hum-along in the chorus. The grey panthers are in entertainment heaven. ''Ooo, 'e's gorra looovely leg on 'im!'' confides one impressed punter to her Polo-crunching pal with matching perm. She's right. He's got a lovely leg, lovely frock and everyone is having a lovely time.

The 70 year old female impersonator on stage (all gorgeous French satin bodice and spangly negligee trimmed with boa feathers) is an original. A rare facilitator for a generation permitted a rare publicly certified nostalgia trip back to the good 'ole days of World War Two. The good 'ole days when ''gay'' meant happy and a fairy was Christmas Tree material only. Hello, boys and girls, and welcome to Danny La Rue in Crewe!

Mid-way through his 30-date music hall tour, Dan the Man has a packed house squealing in the palm of his hand (and it's a damn big hand, as I'll note later). Gazing around his adoring crowds, you can't help but think Danny La Rue - or Danny Patrick Carroll, to give him his real name - is a phenomenon. In a world where lippy drag queen Ru Paul is a cover model and Lily Savage a family favourite, La Rue is both an anachronism and trail blazer. The Cork-born actor has successfully carved out a living as a female impersonator - ''I prefer that to drag queen'' - for 50 years without losing audience or kudos. La Rue is a smart cookie. He walks the elegant fine line. The fine line that permits uptight Brits to enjoy a man in a frock.

You only realise how smart a dame La Rue is when Dan the Man greets me backstage the next day. ''I never let anyone see me in my make-up,'' he says pointedly. I wouldn't quibble. Dan's a big fella at six feet one inch with a paunch rendered invisible last night and today obscured by a baggy canary yellow shirt and worn denims. A vague waft of Calvin Klein's Eternity emanates from the perfectly coiffed silver hair. The transformation into his ''allusions - that's what I like to call my women'' - is all the more devastating.

''I come out as the allusion and from the mouth of that apparition comes [cue Wellesian basso profundo voice] 'Wotcha mate!' They like that because it makes them feel comfortable and think: 'Thank God, he's not going to be all silly.' '' And by ''silly'' he means those unprofessional drag artistes who fall into the lower echelons of impersonating women.

''You know that drag comes from the Shakespearean line 'to drag the skirt'?'' he asks. Dan is also canny enough to know that the Brit sensibility can take a Shakespearean geezer in a frock just as long as the testosterone is apparent at curtain call. ''That's why I come on in a evening suit at the end of the night,'' he explains in that friendly Mr Kipling meets Mr Fruity voice. ''I never pretend to be these people: Judy [Garland], a dear friend; or Liza [Minelli]; or Tina [Turner]; or Liz [Taylor]; or Shirley Bassey, a dear, dear friend. I know all these women. I would never insult, malign or degrade women.

''I love my mother and sisters. That's why I've never had one letter of protest from feminists,'' he announces proudly. ''I give characterisations and that's the difference.''

Here we take the first in a starry host of showbiz anecdotal diversions that pepper the interview. He confides: ''My dear friend Shirley Bassey goes insa-a-ane [cue eye roll and raised plucked brows] when these boys dress up as her and use her music and pretend to be her!''

The rest of the bon-mots are testimony to his half decade in the business. Noel Coward: ''He told me: 'Never define, dear boy. To define is to lose.' '' Mae West: ''Looked like Barbara Windsor but not as pretty.'' Bob Hope: ''He told me I was the best dressed woman in the world!'' Sir John Gielgud: ''He told me: 'I don't like men who dress up but you made me laugh.' '' All these are interjected with relish and not an ounce of coyness.

But we digress. Back to camp Crewe. Danny La Rue is not camp. He is smutty and a fan of seaside innuendo but declares he would never offend his fans. ''I may dress in a frock but I'm not camp in the way that John Inman or Larry Grayson - God rest his soul - were. I'm more family-orientated,'' he clarifies. ''That's because I've done summer season and panto, plus the straight roles in Restoration comedy or Malvolio. I'm considering a role in the homosexual play The Staircase just now.''

Danny Carroll's own life has witnessed a burst of dramatis over the years. His father was ''an Irish rebel who spent time in jail''. His mother was left a widow at 33 with four children to raise in Cork. Aged six, Dan arrived in London with the rest of his siblings and by 17 had joined the navy's ENSA shows.

''The first time I put on woman's clothes was in White Cargo,'' he recalls. ''It was just a white sheet and I didn't think about it.'' Danny paid his dues as dancer, chorus line and bit part player, then came female impersonation and Tennessee Williams.

''He told me it was the first time he'd seen the point in a man dressing up as a woman,'' La Rue preens. Leading ugly sister roles in panto followed, as did his successful West End nightclub where Princess Margaret and Liz Taylor partied the wee hours away.

However, as any Judy Garland fan knows, the yellow brick road to the Emerald City is not all nice frocks and wigs. ''I lost nearly #2m in 1982,'' he recounts in surprising sanguine manner.

''It was silly investments . . . but He took my money and not my talent so here I am living a lovely life,'' he smiles. Still, La Rue's Roman Catholic faith was sorely tested with the deaths of both his mother and life partner/ manager of 32 years, Jack Hanson. In rushed sotto voce he'll explain in a whirl: ''I had a long-term relationship with a man and now I'm celibate, but I live a blessed life.''

The present love of La Rue's life is violently scratching himself under the sink. He's a Chinese Hairless Crested dog called Jonti and La Rue clearly dotes upon his canine pal. Jonti even graces the heart-shaped card that La Rue kindly signs for my grandma. While doing so, he recounts the message he received from a clairvoyant friend of the late Doris Stokes. ''She told me that Jack had come back to me with four legs,'' he says, clearly sceptical but tickled by the thought. And will Jonti accompany him right on to the end of the road? ''Oh yes, she goes everywhere with me,'' he smiles indulgently. ''I'll be hanging my tits up one of these days, though but I'm not a doddery old tart just yet!'' he warns. I do not doubt it. Long Live La Rue!

l Danny La Rue is at The Adam Smith Theatre, Kirkcaldy, on Tuesday 12 and Wednesday 13 May, and The King's Theatre, Glasgow, on Thursday, 14 May