The theatre actress

Lady MacBeth
In September 1999, Dannii like Judi Dench and Jane Horrocks before her, tackled one of the most demanding and sought after Shakespearian roles - Lady MacBeth. And just to prove that all the world is indeed a stage, she's did it outdoors!

Gough claims that casting Dannii wasn't just a headline-grabbing play; it was the fulfillment of a long-cherished hope. 'I couldn't think of anyone better to play the part,' he asserts. 'I've always wanted to work with her, and I've been planning to do this show at the Festival for years. So when I asked her if she wanted to have a stab - as the saying goes! - and she agreed to do it, it was a dream bit of casting for me.'

'It wasn't daunting; it was intriguing,' Dannii said. It was the freedom Gough offered her to develop hew character as she saw fit that convinced her to take the role.
'I'm very fussy not only about what role I play but also about the production and the style in which it's done. Toby has a unique vision. There was no way I was going to waste my time coming up to Edinburgh and doing something that's been done before.
The Lady MacBeth I play will be Dannii Minogue's Lady MacBeth, and when people see it they'll know that it couldn't possibly be anyone else.'

Spoken like a born theatrical diva. Dannii's approach is not that of a giggly rent-a-celeb adding glitz and tits to a production beyond her intellectual scope; she takes the project, and herself, very seriously indeed.
'I'm not going to please everyone. If I worried about what people thought, I'd still be living in Australia and I never would have tried anything.
'It's good for people to see me in a different light; it expands their minds. people constantly want to pigeonhole me, to say I'm just a TV presenter, not just a singer, not just an actress. I'm not just anything. I'm a whole bunch of things and I keep pushing myself to be as diverse as I can, because it interests me. It goes along with my personality - diving straight into things, doing something completely full-on in the greatest possible depth.' Dannii said.

Tody Gouch sees Dannii as a natural Lady MacBeth, describing her as 'a fantastic performer with fantastic sexuality and fantastic guts.' Does Dannii feel any kinship with that most driven and determined of leading ladies? 'Ohh ... it would be a pretty broad thing to say I identified with her. Everyone has determination - it's a question of how you use it. Hers is based on power and success and conquering; she doesn't care what she has to do or who gets hurt in the process. In that way we're very, very different. I'm not living for when I have a Number One record or when I make a million trillion dollars. I'm not doing this to get somewhere else.
I'm doing it because I'm doing it.'

The Vagina Monologues
Dannii starred in the west end play July 31 2001.

When I did the Vagina Monologues, that was the first bit of comedy I’d ever done. You don’t realise you love it until you try it… it’s like some kind of drug! You say something and then you know people are going to laugh.

About the play
Eve Ensler (Author) is an award winning playwright, poet, activist, and screenwriter. Her many works for the stage include The Depot, Floating Rhonda and the Glue Man, Extraordinary Measures, Ladies, Scooncat and Lemonade. Her play Necessary Targets has had benefit performances on Broadway, at the National Theatre in Sarajevo, and at the Kennedy Centre and opened in London in the Spring of 2001. Her newest play, Conviction, was commissioned by Music-Theatre group and was performed at the Berkshire Theatre Festival.The Vagina Monologues won a 1997 Obie Award and was nominated for Drama Desk and Helen Hayes awards. The world tour of the Vagina Monologues initiated V-Day, a global movement to stop violence against women. Ms. Ensler's best-selling book of The Vagina Monologues was published by Villard Books.

She also starred in:
Les Monologues de Vagin (Folies Bergere, Paris, Theatre)
V-Day (Royal Albert Hall, London, Theatre - 2002)