The Independent

‘From rebel to national treasure’: How Paul O’Grady won our hearts with his drag alter ego Lily Savage

Source: ITV/iStock/Getty

On a Saturday night in January 1987, Paul O’Grady was on stage at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. He was performing as his drag alter ego Lily Savage, the Scouse sex worker with an acid tongue and a towering blonde wig. Then the police burst in: the raid was ostensibly part of a crackdown on amyl nitrate, or poppers, but was also seen as an attempt to intimidate the gay community. Aids panic was at its height, and the officers all wore rubber gloves to avoid touching the crowd. “It looks like we’ve got help with the washing up,” O’Grady quipped.

There are few showbiz careers that manage to encompass an arrest at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and heartwarming teatime TV shows about rescue dogs. But Paul O’Grady, who gave his “real name” to the desk sergeant at the police station that night as “Lily Veronica Mae Savage”, did just that – and never lost his subversive edge.

A year on from O’Grady’s , ITV’s new documentary charts how his drag persona emerged against the backdrop of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, Section 28 (the notorious legislation banning local authorities from “the promotion of homosexuality”)

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