Queen of mimicry

The woman with a million faces is bringing them to Showtime. Starting tonight, the British comic who began her career as a pop vocalist is up to some of her old tricks in “Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union.” For a half-hour every week, she offers viewers a day in the life of America, playing a mind-boggling cast of characters including well-known celebrities and the homeless woman recently dumped on the street after her health insurance ran out.

Less a variety show than an extended one-woman play, “State of the Union” probes the politics of such things as airline security and foreign adoptions and showcases Ullman’s almost frightening gift for satirical mimicry. In true democratic tradition, Ullman skewers everyone and everything -- Laurie David, Arianna Huffington, Victoria and David Beckham, Judi Dench, terror-addicted newscasters, airline security workers, pregnant septuagenarians.

There are no sacred cows, only Hindu pharmacists with Bollywood aspirations. If you don’t find something to laugh at in “State of the Union,” then you aren’t looking hard enough.

(Showtime, Sun., 10 p.m.)

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-- Mary McNamara