For the shamefully uninformed, Margaret Cho is a notorious stand-up comedian. She is famous for her murderously funny, politically charged, brutally balls-out routines. Perhaps her most defining line of all is “Hello, my name is Gwen. I’m here to wash your vagina.” What a claim to fame.

Beautiful tackles the politics of body image, a construct close to Margaret’s heart. She has freely admitted to suffering from eating disorders and a distorted perception of beauty.

“It’s something that really affects everybody,” Margaret tells SX. “But I think for queers in general, it’s really important to feel beautiful because you have to have more confidence in the world than straight people, you have to have more stamina than straight people, you have to have more abilities in yourself, because we live in a world that is really anti-gay and in order to survive that we need to feel beautiful.

“So it’s a show about finding that beauty within ourselves and defining ourselves more as beautiful, which I think is a really important issue.

“Lately I’ve noticed a lot of gay men are affected by body image issues because the gay ideal of beauty is completely unattainable. It’s insane – gay men do too much exercise, they do too much dieting. I know a lot of gay men who use crystal meth in order to be thin. We need a way out of this craziness.”

Margaret has a particular fondness for gay men – an innate sense of kinship that dates back to her childhood.

“I love gay men because for me they’re my family,” she says. “They’re my home, where I’m from. I grew up in San Francisco and was raised by tattooed drag queens my whole life. My full existence was always around gay men and so as an artist I identify as queer. It’s just the continuation of my childhood, hanging out with the trannies.

“I’m the ultimate fag hag.”

The affection, it seems, is mutual. Margaret has become a heroine to gay men and women around the world for her candor, her strength and her refusal to be stereotyped. She’s a velvet sledgehammer – fearless but sweet.

“I really just want to be nice to people,” she insists. “It’s more fun to be nice than bitchy. Nice is the new sexy, the new black!”

What gets her comedic juices flowing?

“It’s everything,” she muses. “It’s what’s going on in the world, what’s happening politically.

“And congratulations on your new Prime Minister! It’s really exciting because you’ve been under that regime for 11 years. It’s also good news for America and I hope we really take note and see that we can actually change. But who knows? People are so crazy – it’s awful.”

Margaret has been performing stand-up since the age of 16 and started her career opening for Jerry Seinfeld. In 1999 her groundbreaking one-woman show, I’m The One That I Want, both stunned and delighted audiences across the board.

“I think it shocked people because I was talking really honestly about Hollywood and things like eating disorders, and how Hollywood image makers are really damaging to the human psyche.

“People hadn’t really talked about that before so I think that’s why it was a big deal. And also talking about sexuality and being very candid about my own sexuality really surprised people – the idea that you could just be queer, that you don’t have to be ‘gay’ or ‘straight’.”

Margaret is endlessly inspired by younger generations who are beginning to shun identity-laden boxes in favour of a label-free sexual pluralism.

“Young queers are really incredible politically because they’re redefining themselves and casting off labels,” she says. “They’re feeling like they’re just queer and don’t have to be ‘gay’ or ‘lesbian’ – it’s no longer ‘LGBT’. We can fall in love with anybody.”

This year Margaret has worked as emcee for the multi-artist True Colors Tour, which travelled to 16 cities throughout the United States and Canada. The aim was to bring together Americans in solidarity against discrimination and to raise public awareness for the issues facing the GLBT community. It was headlined (and conceived) by Cyndi Lauper and also featured artists such as Debbie Harry, Rufus Wainwright, Erasure and The Dresden Dolls. One dollar of every ticket sold went to the Human Rights Campaign.

I was thrilled to be a part of it because I’m about as colourful and as queer as it gets,” she declares. “Who else was going to keep all those queens in line?

“It was really amazing – the whole idea of changing the world with music and facing hatred and homophobia with music.”

Margaret is determined to paint the town red during her time in Sydney.

“Cyndi and I are going to be partying the whole time. She’s wild and so I hope Mardi Gras is ready for us, because we are some wild ladies!”

Margaret Cho will premiere her new show, Beautiful, supported by Ian Harvie, at Sydney Theatre on February 27 and 28. Tickets are $65/$60. For bookings visit www.sydneytheatre.com.au or call (02) 9250 1999.