For 40 years Vesta Tilley was the toast of the British music hall Hers was a rags-to-riches story born to a poor working-class family in the Midlands, she died a stage idol, a much-loved philanthropist and the wealthy and respected widow of a Conservative MP Behind the fairytale lay a wit and daring that made her not so much mimic male fashions as create them as she played with the limits of her sexual differentiation cross-dressing and acting in drag