Pam Ann, the Sixties-style self-appointed queen of the skies, airline owner and stewardess, is embarking on the next leg of her journey towards world domination, and she doesn't much care whom she offends en route.

As she takes off the rituals of flying in her variety-style shows, real “rival” airlines are often the target: British Airways trolley dollies are all “jolly hockey sticks”, Virgin Atlantic crew are a bit sexy, and so on. Her stand-up set is peppered with camp song-and-dance numbers, which may seem like light relief next to her harshly observed audience interaction and her trademark brutal double entendres.

Critics have occasionally argued that she's riding a one-trick pony that will soon get tired, but Pam's real-life alter ego, the comedian Caroline Reid, has faith in the character she created in mid-1990s Melbourne. If it is a one-trick pony, then “the pony's been pretty good to me” she says, referring to a cult following in her native Australia, highly successful UK tours and Edinburgh runs. She's even supported Cher and provided in-flight entertainment on Elton John's private jet. Later this month she's transforming the Hammersmith Apollo into her very own terminal, the Hammersmith Layover, for two nights. “They'll be the biggest and best shows in my career. It's going to be like a massive party,” she explains.

Those last words could have been uttered either by Pam or Caroline: Reid admits that the two sometimes “get morphed”. Perhaps this is understandable, given how easily Pam came into life. At 26, hanging out with the city's edgy arts crowd - and a lot of drag queens - she seemed to fall upon an idea that was an instant hit, playing to packed rooms of friends and contacts.

She also revelled in the “fabulous, bitchy, hysterical” atmosphere in which Pam found her wings in Sydney. Moving to London in 1999 was more of a struggle - “I sometimes played to four drunks,” she says of her first English gigs. But with time and hard graft she became as much the icon here as in Oz, with cabin crew and members of the gay community her most ardent fans.

Pam remains the mainstay of Reid's act, although additional aeronaughties are periodically bolted on. Clodagh from Ryan-air will make her debut at Hammersmith. There's Vespa from Alitalia, who chirpily greets flyers: “Ciao, Bellisimo, Donatellaversace!” Another favourite, Lily the Chinese air assistant, would nick passengers' designer handbags in the event of an emergency, like the plane going down the “wong wunway”.

It's all good, slightly dirty fun and beneath the cliché Pam does have some striking ideas: that Windsor Castle should be the new Heathrow runway; that Emirates airlines have so much fuel that they hose planes down with petrol. But she's still ploughing essentially the same furrow of overblown stereotypes, so it's hard to imagine her motley crew entering as many hearts as, say, Steve Coogan's characters. Or as Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat and Ali G, who also rely heavily on Pam-style hyperbole, but can reveal heavyweight truths in the process.

Her forthcoming variety chat show on Foxtel in Australia will be a good barometer of whether a more mainstream audience will warm to Reid's work. For now, though, she forthrightly claims that she doesn't crave wider recognition. She says of her Hammersmith gigs: “This show isn't about being different, it isn't about pleasing anyone except myself and fans.”

Pam Ann: Hammersmith Layover, Hammersmith

Apollo, London W6 (www.hammersmithapollo.net 08448 444748), Nov 27-29

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