More Please: An Autobiography

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Meet the judges!". BBC. 28 February 2008. Archived from the original on 5 March 2008 . Retrieved 23 April 2023. Edmonds, Ross (March 2022). "Barry Humphries: Book Collector Extraordinaire". Biblionews and Australian Notes and Queries (413): 20–23. Although television brought his gallery of grotesques to a mass audience, it was those who witnessed one of his live stage shows who had Humphries’ outrageous performance most indelibly scarred on their minds. Edna, in particular, preyed on her audience like, as one critic put it, “a vulture in bird-of-paradise clothing”.

Humphries was a friend of the English poet John Betjeman until Betjeman's death in 1984. Their friendship began in 1960 after Betjeman, while visiting Australia, heard some of Humphries' early recordings and wrote very favourably of them in an Australian newspaper. Their friendship was, in part, based around numerous shared interests, including Victorian architecture, Cornwall and the music hall. [93] Perceptions of what was considered either cutting edge or decadent in the jazz-infused music of Germany of the 1920s and 30s had fascinated him since finding a bundle of sheet music in Melbourne. In Australia in 2013 and in London seasons in 2016 and 2018, he explored it in the show Weimar Cabaret, with the chanteuse Meow Meow.As of September 2021, Humphries was honorary vice-president of the American Guild of Variety Artists trade union. [65] Farewell tour [ edit ] Humphries in 2012 The statement read: "Barry Humphries is currently in hospital receiving treatment for health issues.

Humphries' character, Sandy Stone, was an elderly Australian man, either single or married with a daughter who died as a child. Humphries said in 2016 that "slowly the character has deepened, so I begin to understand and appreciate him, and finally feel myself turning into him". As Humphries aged, he no longer required makeup for the part, and played Sandy in his own dressing gown. [86] Personal life [ edit ] As the character evolved, Edna's unseen family became an integral part of the satire, particularly the travails of her disabled husband Norm, who had an almost lifelong onslaught of an unspecified prostate ailment. Her daughter Valmai and her gay-hairdresser son Kenny became intrinsic elements of the act, as did her long-suffering best friend and New Zealand bridesmaid, Madge Allsop. [83] Eliezer, Christie (30 June 2008). "Australia's Helpmann Nominations Unveiled". Billboard. Prometheus Global Media (Nielsen Business Media). Archived from the original on 14 August 2016 . Retrieved 30 April 2012. Barry Humphries lands in hot water over anti-trans comments". news.com.au. 22 July 2018. Archived from the original on 27 February 2021 . Retrieved 10 May 2021.Dear Edna: Why Can't We Laugh Anymore?". Los Angeles Times. 16 February 2003. Archived from the original on 12 March 2014 . Retrieved 23 April 2023. The tour was widely praised. Dan Ilic of Time Out Sydney stated that Humphries delivered "a show that almost feels like a blue print for the foundations for the last fifty years of Australian comedy". [69] Helen Musa of CityNews gave a similarly positive review, referring to Humphries being "as virile, as vulgar and as magnificent as ever" thanks to a "well researched" script. [70] Arts blog Critter Away referred to Humphries' characters as being "still fresh" and "a testament to laugh-out-loud satire". [71]

a b "Barry Humphries retires as Dame Edna and Sir Les". The Daily Telegraph. London. 18 March 2012. Archived from the original on 7 September 2012 . Retrieved 11 July 2012. Humphries featured in various roles in comedy performance films including The Secret Policeman's Other Ball (1982) and A Night of Comic Relief 2 (1989). In 1987, he starred as Les Patterson in one of his own rare flops, Les Patterson Saves the World, directed by George T. Miller of Man From Snowy River fame and co-written by Humphries with his third wife, Diane Millstead. [35]A smattering of stage performances kept Humphries in touch with a live audience, including playing a Brechtian tramp with a Liverpool accent in another Lionel Bart musical, Maggie May. Oldie of the Year for "his wonderful split personality which has entertained us for so many years" [136] Thompson, Tom (7 September 2013). "Lewis Morley: Eye on the iconic, heart for the home". The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023 . Retrieved 23 April 2023. a b Celia Walden (30 December 2008), "Dame Edna Everage: 'The world needs my beauty secrets' ", The Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 21 April 2012 , retrieved 22 April 2023 One of the earliest mentions of Barry Humphries in the Guardian was in an arts report from 1978, ahead of a new West End theatre production. Dressed as Dame Edna Everage, Humphries told a press conference: “There’s room for something tasteless in London. There’s too much good taste in Britain and there won’t be much left when I’m gone”.

Record titled A Nice Night's Entertainment". Arts Centre Melbourne. Archived from the original on 14 May 2021 . Retrieved 24 April 2023. Humphries, Barry (25 June 2006). "Roast beef and bubbly with Betjeman". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022 . Retrieved 26 April 2010. Murray-Atfield, Yara (16 April 2019). "Barry Humphries's name stripped from Melbourne comedy festival award after transgender controversy". ABC News (Australia). Archived from the original on 6 May 2021 . Retrieved 10 May 2021. Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour – Review". Critter Away. 6 July 2012. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016 . Retrieved 11 July 2012. It's an Honour". itsanhonour.gov.au. Archived from the original on 11 April 2018 . Retrieved 22 April 2018.a b "Barry Humphries obituary: Actor of Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 24 April 2023 . Retrieved 25 April 2023. The London show Housewife Superstar was a critical point in Humphries’s career. Besides confirming that Edna, Dame as she now was, had a large and loyal group of English fans, it was also the occasion on which Leslie Colin Patterson, the self-proclaimed Cultural Attaché to the Court of St James, first launched his vulgar, vituperative self on an unsuspecting public. He then took the show to New York, but it flopped. Wouldn’t give us any beer because they felt the film displayed their product in a vulgar way. At the time there were commercials being done... in which people in a boat on Sydney Harbour were seen to be sipping Foster’s lager from what looked like liqueur glasses with sort of crooked pinkies, to show it was not just a yobbo’s drink. Barry Humphries obituary: Entertainer's outrageous caricatures Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson took the one-man show to new heights". The Irish Times. Archived from the original on 24 April 2023 . Retrieved 24 April 2023. Groves, Don (23 March 2010). "Beresford reflects on his 'colossal mistake' ". SBS. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023 . Retrieved 23 April 2023.