Douglas Byng in drag during a pantomime. Photograph, 1952.

Douglas Byng in high glamour drag in the early fifties: he wears a white fur stole, has styled blonde hair and wears a long white dress, standing in front of an embossed leather screen. The English actor and cabaret performer Douglas Byng (1893-1987) was one of the great stars of the English variety stage. He appears here in 'Glamour Dame' drag, a genre which he was instrumental in developing in the 1920s. Before that, pantomime dames were grotesque parodies making no attempt at 'female impersonation'