“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.” "I was born with a priceless gift, the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others." “My mother used to say that there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet. She's now in a maximum security twilight home in Australia.” "I love making an audience gasp. I don’t crave the sound of applause. I crave the sound of sharply indrawn breath. That’s a good sound."
It's turning into a rather depressing year for losing our icons, with the sad news of the magnificent Barry Humphries, aka "Housewife Gigastar" Dame Edna Everage, who departed for Fabulon today.
From his early days in Melbourne as an academic, DaDaist exhibitor and budding thespian, he made a big jump by moving to London, just in time for what became known as "the satire boom". He befriended the leading lights of the genre, including Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Willie Rushton and all, and worked with Spike Milligan in his absurdist production The Bed Sitting Room - and also launched Dame Edna (as well as his myriad other characters including Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone) on an unsuspecting West End.
Inevitably, of course, the Brits took him/her to their hearts, and it was over here that he/she skyrocketed to fame and a righful position of "national treasure" (despite being Australian) - and The Dame Edna Experience chat show became a massive prime-time telly success in the 1980s!
Even once he'd put the Dame into semi-retirement, he remained a formidable cutural figure, with a revue based on Weimar Republic cabaret songs performed by chanteuse Meow Meow, and his own nostalgic BBC Radio 2 show all about "forgotten musical gems" from the early 20th century.
Adored the man - and, of course the Dame! We saw Edna on stage winding up another "lost treasure" Sir Terry Wogan at Proms in the Park ten years ago, and I and our friend Mark went to see his "farewell" show, also in 2013.
RIP, John Barry Humphries AO CBE (17th February 1934 – 22nd April 2023)
