Lulu McClatchy arrived at the upmarket townhouse in London’s Earls Court and was whisked into a bedroom where she transformed herself into her brash pop-star stage alter-ego, SuperGirly. She then waited to make an entrance for the party’s guest of honour.
“SuperGirly is delusional. She’s also a compulsive liar and way too old and too overweight to be a pop star,” says McClatchy, who is resurrecting her SuperGirly character for a series of Melbourne shows. “And, of course, she thinks she knows all these celebrities …”
The irony is that, as SuperGirly, McClatchy has indeed met some of the world’s greatest performers, including the guest of honour at that swanky Earls Court soiree.
“While I was living in London I had a singing gig in a gay restaurant,” McClatchy explains. “One day one of the guests said he was having a party at his home for Madonna and could I come and do a song for her?
“I thought it would be a drag queen dressed as Madonna, but when I walked into that party, Madonna was actually sitting on the couch wearing what looked like a nightie. She had her hands over her eyes going, ‘Can I open my eyes now?’ in her American drawl.
“The host was her interior designer and, just before, he warned me that if Madonna didn’t like what I did she’d pull the plug on the PA. But I did a couple of songs and Madonna danced around saying, ‘Shake it girls, shake it’. It was surreal.”
McClatchy grew up in Ringwood, began singing at primary school and was acting by the age of nine. One of her first TV roles was in Carson’s Law.
“Mum and dad weren’t stage parents – they own a lighting shop – but they got me singing and acting lessons,” she says.
She left high school at the end of year 11 to sing, mostly in jazz bands, and continued to act, earning theatre and TV roles in productions such as Neighbours.
In 1997 she decided to accompany her sister to London. McClatchy asked a fellow singer to join them and they formed a comedy act performing pop songs. Going solo as SuperGirly, she became popular in London’s gay scene and performed at private functions.
At a 40th birthday party for Bananarama’s Siobhan Fahey, McClatchy remembers being uncharacteristically starstruck when she realised Jennifer Saunders was in the audience.
“Mum was visiting me at the time and kept saying, ‘Just go over and say hello’,” recalls McClatchy. “As I was dithering, Ade Edmondson, her husband, tapped me on the shoulder and said, ‘Excuse me, Jennifer wants to meet you but she’s too shy’.”
Gradually, McClatchy began changing the lyrics of the songs she performed, adding humour and her own dance and dress style.
She says her SuperGirly stage costumes were once designer made, but back home in Australia she now creates her own with some help from her local Spotlight store and a trusty glue gun.
In Britain, SuperGirly became a regular on popular TV shows of the 1990s and 2000s, such as Live and Kicking, where she performed sketches with celebrities, such as Sting, who pretended to be an over-eager SuperGirly fan. “The people around him were hesitant and suggested I should be his fan – but what’s funny about that?” McClatchy says. “When I asked Sting he arrived with SuperGirly press clippings – his kids had seen the show and collected material on us.”
Similarly, her act struck a chord with Elton John and his partner David Furnish, who asked her to perform at their White Tie & Tiara Ball, after seeing SuperGirly at a West End comedy event. She chose a Spice Girl number for the ball and the girl band were there to watch. So were Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Liz Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michael Douglas and Sarah Ferguson.
“The Duchess of York came up to me afterwards and said, ‘Duchess of York – f***ing great!’ ” McClatchy recounts in a mock upper-crust voice. “Then she said, ‘I couldn’t say things like that before. I can say what I f***ing want now’.”
Elton John later asked McClatchy to perform at a friend’s 60th birthday party, she was part of the opening celebrations of the Lion King in London and she was Elton John’s support act during his Australian tour in 2002. “At Rod Laver Arena, Elton took mum into the auditorium and sang her a song while he did his warm up,” McClatchy says.
By then McClatchy was married and, after the arrival of daughter Molly nine years ago, she came home to Australia and returned to film and TV. She is no lightweight when it comes to writing, acting and producing. She has won awards at the Florida Film Festival and she won the Maverick Movie Award in Los Angeles. She has also appeared in local dramas including Bogan Pride on SBS and Offspring.
The return of SuperGirly teams McClatchy with theatre actor Lyall Brooks – SuperGirly’s “man slave” – in shows at Chapel off Chapel. McClatchy is looking forward to a reunion with the celebrity wannabe who will tackle the current crop of female pop stars – Miley Cyrus, Katie Perry and Britney Spears to name a few.
And what does her daughter think of SuperGirly? McClatchy smiles. “Molly is not easily impressed,” she says. “Last year she had to do a talk at school about someone’s career in her family. So Molly talked about her nanna who works in a light shop!”
» SuperGirly: Return of the Pop Princess Chapel off Chapel from May 28 to June 8
