the times | Saturday April 9 2022 saturday review 11
saying that I invented her and that it’s a
total tissue of lies, a Kleenex of lies. Edna
maintains that when she appears in one of
my shows, I’m the one who gets the good
reviews and yet she feels that she’s the
drawcard. Edna says I’ve been spreading
malicious rumours that I dress up as her
and it’s about time she took legal action.
Even though she’s already done five fare-
well shows, she might have to do one more,
to set the record straight.”
“Edna’s the boomerang of showbiz,” I
suggest.
“Boomerang is a first nation word,
Kathy, and it means... boomerang, appar-
ently... Actually I am only pretending
to be Edna’s manager — that’s an
exclusive for you. Edna was invented
for a two-week run in 1955. But when
I get her out of a dressing up box,
she speaks to me. She gives hope to
women — she says what they’re
thinking. The meaner she is, the more
warmly the audience show affection
for her. When she’s on stage, I feel like
I’m watching from the wings. And when
she is doing her bit, I occasionally think:
“Hmmm... I wish I’d thought of that.
“Dame Edna never wanted Sir Les in the
show,” he says. “Most women wake up next
to a Les on their pillow every morning and
Edna feels sure that they don’t want to
spend an evening with him as well. I think
women find Dame Edna empowering
because she’s saying there’s a way out.
You can tiptoe through the broken kids’
toys in the backyard and escape over the
fence to a new life!”
“And what of Sir Les?” I inquire. He’s so
damning of the Dame. “Let’s hear it for
Edna,” he once spluttered. “When she
steps on to the stage, I want you to give
her the clap she so richly deserves.” IsBarry worried about incurring Les’s wrath
by leaving him out?
“Well, Sir Les is on the Tony Blair lecture
circuit and becoming quite rich. He’s sent
his wife, Gwen, to a cosmetic surgeon to
get those Kardashian lips.”
I explain to Barry that the procedure
involves taking collagen out of your
bottom and injecting it into your lips,
so then Sir Les and his wife will both be
talking out of their backsides.
Barry gives a little kookaburra cackle,
but his pianist is calling him back into
rehearsals. I conclude by asking if, after
two years of ADD, he’s looking forward to
hearing those waves of laughter.
“I am generally well received,” he
replies, humbly, “but every now and then
I give offence. My motto is: I offend there-
fore I am.”
When faced with life’s lunacy, Barry is
always able to see the funny side — and
after endless lockdowns and now rootin’,
shootin’, tootin’ Putin hell-bent on geo-
graphical kleptomania, have we ever
needed a laugh more? I suggest that
doctors prescribe The Man Behind the
Mask as an antidote to our anxieties.
Barry runs a hand through his luxuriant
locks. “I’m embarrassed now because I
can’t deal with praise. I can read bad
reviews, as that’s how I improve, but good
reviews make me uncomfortable.”
Clearly Barry is that very rare breed —
a self-made man who doesn’t worship his
creator. If he did, I have no doubt Dame
Edna would start whacking him over the
noggin with her gladdies.
Barry Humphries: The Man Behind the
Mask (manbehindthemask.co.uk) tours
until June 1. Kathy Lette’s latest novel,
Till Death, or a Little Light Maiming,
Do Us Part, is published by Vintagecomedy
His motto
is: I offend
therefore I am
Kathy Lette on the real Barry Humphries, the
comedian behind Dame Edna Everage and Sir
Les Patterson — and her friend of 40 years
A
ustralia is home to the
world’s most deadly
creatures — the tiger
snake, the great white
shark, the funnel-web
spider, and the Dame
Edna Everage. Edna has
the most venomous wit. It can be extreme-
ly hazardous to be dragged up on stage as
you may be devoured alive.
Equally as lethal is her cultural attaché,
Sir Les Patterson — the beer-bellied
barbarian with the most impressive organ
outside Westminster Abbey.
Their manager, Barry Humphries, how-
ever, is their antithesis. Warm, wise, can-
did, kind and deliciously self-deprecating,
Barry has been my friend for more than
40 years. I met him in my late teens at the
Melbourne comedy awards and immedi-
ately fell in love with his wordplay. Yep, it
was love at first slight. Barry can triple an
entendre. He has what I call a black belt in
tongue fu. A dinner party involving Barry
becomes the Wimbledon of wit, with ban-
ter being lobbed back and forth, leaving
guests reeling from quip-lash. “Twiggy?”
he pointed out over entrées, recently, “I
don’t think we can call her Twiggy any
more. At her age she’s more of a branch.”
I’m lucky enough to experience Barry’s
wicked wit on a regular basis because
we’ve been neighbours in London for
25 years. Barry’s house backs on to mine.
Returning home from a world tour, he
invariably sends me an email along the
lines of: “Kathy dear, I’m poised at your
rear entrance.”
Nothing brightens up a grey London day
quite like bumping into Barry in the street,
because he always has something scintil-
lating to say. Basically, Barry has been
taking our cultural temperature with a
comedic thermometer for more than half
a century — with hilarious effect.
The pandemic lockdowns were particu-
larly gruelling for performers, and ADD
(Audience Deficit Disorder) hit Barry
hard. Respite came only once a week when
we’d emerge, blinking, from various sub-
urban burrows, to clap for carers. Clad in a
smoking jacket, Barry would sashay on to
his top-floor balcony, applaud our heroic
frontline workers, then secretly imagine
himself back in the theatre. Eyes twin-
kling, he would bathe in the applause
before taking a humble bow. He once told
me that his favourite part of a hectic day is
to walk out on stage before 1,000 people,
sighing with relief: “Ah, alone at last.” This
is because Barry is a born performer.
Even as a teenager he was putting on
Dadaesque displays. “Social distancing is
nothing new,” Barry told me once. “I prac-
tised it often, early in my career, when my
surrealist expressionism made audiences
evaporate.”
It also explains why, aged 88, Barry is
treading the boards again, performing his
new one-man show.
“So,” I ask him, over Zoom from Sydney,
“You’re doing a one-man show... Are you
worried you might fall out with the cast?”
He smiles wryly. “The only reason I’ve
always done one-man shows is that I don’t
like any competition on stage. I don’t want
anyone else in the cast stealing my thunder
and my limelight.”
“The show is called The Man Behind the
Mask, so are you really going to strip off
to your emotional underwear in a psycho-
logical striptease that reveals all?”
Barry gives me another of his Cheshire
cat smiles. “That’s a very unimaginative
question, Kathy — the best way to find out
is to come along. I like this show so much
I’m going to do it every night. I’m learning
about myself. It’s really a journey of self-
discovery. It’s a catharsis for me, stand-
ing up on stage and telling the truth.
For example, I didn’t realise that I’m
such a funny person... Although I’m
obviously not sexually attracted to
myself, which puts me in a different
category from many other male
comedians you and I know.”
Obviously, Barry does not suffer from
an irony deficiency. I’m reminded of the
time he was talking to Michael Bolton and
purred: “You’ve had nine hits this year...
on your website.” Barry is the Federer of
the backhanded compliment — able to
elevate then annihilate in the same breath.
“Unlike other so-called comedians, well,
those young men ‘identifying as comedi-
ans’,” he clarifies, “I will be wearing nice
clothes. I’ll make Jimmy Carr look like a
tramp — a homeless person. And above
all, I will be wearing clean underwear for
each show. Because you never know, there
can be a crisis on stage, as experienced by
Tommy Cooper. It’s very important as you
get older that the underwear is spotless.”
I remind Barry that Dame Edna often
comments that she was “born with a price-
less gift, the ability to laugh at the misfor-
tune of others”. What will the Housewife
Superstar think about him doing a show
without her? “Will there be blood on the
theatre shagpile?”
“Dame Edna is very concerned about
the show because she’s worried I’ll befirm friends Kathy
Lette and her chum
Barry Humphries. Below:
Dame Edna EverageJULIE KIRIACOUDIS