DL, what's your take on Dame Edna?

I worked with Barry back in the 80's doing an Ad for Australian Airlines. I found him rather depressing. His stage show back then was fabulous...but as we know that's all acting.

The phone call from the audience member through her was a plant. How spontaneous is that?

R2, at least at the show I was at, it wasn't a phone plant. She engaged with audience members in a pretty funny way. One of the guys was a Woody's regular in Philly, so I doubt he was in on the joke.

He was funny, had some local Boston references and jokes (the Red Sox, Revere Beach, Suffolk Downs etc.) and was indeed engaging otherwise. It wasn't in the show but his version of Sondheim's "Losing My Mind" is a classic of the FFJ genre - awful, but awfully funny. Don't get me wrong: he's funny. The first time I was in Melbourne I took a cab to Moonee Ponds. I don't agree, but Australian friends think his Sir Les Patterson character is better than Edna. I have a fondness for poor, put-upon Madge and Edna's constant quest for savouries, but we could see that part of the show was staged.

We were in the row behind the plant: he showed up 10 minutes late to the second seat from the aisle despite the standard "no latecomers will be seated" notice, the spotlight was on him while he stood until the bit was over. The minute it was off, he excused himself and never returned. We were with a British couple who said they'd seen it, and skits like it before and that even the call's recipient was named "Chloe" when they'd seen it last.

I saw him in Atlanta sometime around 2004 and there were also local references, the one I remember was about someone “living in a trailer out on Bankhead Highway”. I figure he must have a local supply him with references to insert into the act, like name a poor part of town.

Only real royalty Britain has left is an Australian drag queen. Crikey!

^ He's giving Camilla fashion tips.

In character, he would ask an audience member where he or she lived. When told, he’d say “I hear there are some lovely homes near there”. It was pretty funny.

I will always appreciate him for HATING Chevy Chase when he appeared on Dame Edna's talk show.

Chevy got all pissy about being cut off and dropped a name, "My friend Johnny said that the secret to a good talk show host is letting the guest talk."

Without missing a beat, Edna replied, "Yes, well that's ONE approach." And then continued talking. It was brilliant.

But I have heard that the actor is a right-wing asshole in real life.

R9 He is.

I had middling expectations when I saw her live, but I must admit I've never laughed harder at a comedian in my life. The songs were too long and too numerous, but the rest of the show was wonderful. He is really good at crowd work. He kept asking people in my town if the home they lived in was attached, which is not a feature of homes here. The more often he asked, the more confused the victim became, and the funnier it got.

This is one of the funniest bits I've ever seen her do.

With the new anti-drag laws Dame Edna is banned in Tennessee, likely going to prison if a child happened to be in the audience.

“Dame Edna’s Honorary Understudy” Scott F Mason will be performing what appears to be an Edna/Drag/Insult Comedy show at Don’t Tell Mama this month.

Has anybody seen this person perform? Are there multiple “understudies” on the road while Barry sits at home and cashes the checks?

I like her. I admire her for making it in the US and UK with her own persona.

Love love love Dame Edna, especially The Dame Edna Experience. Many of the full episodes are on YouTube.

Here’s one featuring guest stars Nana Mouskouri, Zsa Zsa Gabor and Germaine Greer. Now there’s a line-up!

I saw the live show in Indianapolis years ago.

Very funny with the all the local references spoken about here already. There was a GROUP of latecomers and she asked them where they were from......after they told her, she said: "I came here all the way from Australia and I got here on time....." Which she probably does every night.....but it was FUNNY.

She had some kind of basket on a pole and had people put their shoes in it and then sent them back to their seats. The shoes were forgotten about until the end of the show....everyone came back onstage and she critiqued their footwear.

What happened with Jack Palance when he was on The Dame Edna Experience in 1991? Cher was the main guest and then there was also Bea Arthur, Mel Gibson and Larry Hagman. Jack was there for a while but then I think he had to be removed because he was saying inappropriate things. At the end of the show, (@ 45:17) Bea Arthur turns to Dame Edna and says "You are incredible! I don't know how you kept your sanity." You can't hear what she actually says but that's what I got from reading her lips. So, what did Jack Palance do during the show that was so bad?

I know Humphries was old school and probably had some antiquated opinions. I don't know his history well enough to comment, and I disliked Humphries' male characters (perhaps I need more of an understanding of male culture in Australia to get the joke).

But Edna was hilarious. I saw her circa 2000 in Toronto. The "plot" of any Edna show was as thin as a toothpick, a rehearsed joke here, a song there, and a peppering of a few local references.

But the real genius of the show was what transpired in between those points, her interactions with the audience. Edna's ability to take a piece of banal nothingness and polish a hilarious piece from it was unparalleled. To borrow a British saying, Edna excelled at "taking the piss" out of the audience in such a way that they didn't even quite realize what was happening until they'd sat in their seats and thought about it a while.

Edna's golden tongue lashed at both stuffy Republican types as well as limousine liberals/NPR bubble liberals. The beginnings of Edna back in Australia was Humphries making fun of those self important garden club ladies that felt like their hour of volunteering a week gave them carte blanche to pass judgement on the world. When Edna both became a part of, and also lampooned the world of celebrity, Humphries pivoted and put the focus on the audience. Genius.

Aww, do I love these back to the past threads...

NO!

R19 This one seems to have been started before Barry died.

Thanks r11!

Saw the Broadway show and it was better than Cats!

Even Betty Bacall like Dame Edna, and Betty Bacall didn't like anyone

It doesn't surprise me that Barry was depressive, he had an awful, snobbish, narcissistic mother who mocked and neglected him, and her abuse seemed to color his whole live and fuel his demons and his success. A complicated, conflicted, brilliant man.

I never suffered post- natal depression, but my children did!

I thought it was fascinating when Dame Edna was asked about Barry Humphries, and she got all quiet and said something about what a shifty guy he was and not to be trusted. It was really weird and funny and cool.

He could be really creepy and subversive, and good and dirty, with the line about the gynecologist with Parkinson’s Disease “not such a bad thing”, and once when he, in character as Dame Edna, spoke all tenderly and said something like “when I was a young girl just beginning to grow hair that I could sit on…” That was pretty creepy and shocking, but he wasn’t afraid of that. I remember how he could say really dark and cutting things in a kind, syrupy tone. That struck me as really dark and different and pretty fascinating.

I also really like the way he was overly familiar and sentimental with guests, like Judi Dench. You could see Dench smiling but also scared about what was about to come at her. One comedic device Humphries used pretty masterfully was sharing all these chatty and falsely intimate details about celebrities, sometimes really cruel and cutting, like an old spinster aunt who remembers something embarrassing about you shares it in front of all your friends. Maybe that’s what kept his audience engaged.

She is grand. I adore her. Or did. Her departure is a terrible loss to us all.

She was guest star at a concert of Andre Rieu, she told him she was Dutch in a former life, where, as a little girl, she put her finger in a dyke. He didn't get it for a while and when he did, he totally lost it!

A comic genius.

I’ve never laughed harder than at her Broadway shows. Great memories.

In Australia and Britian, it is a sacrilege to call Dame Edna a drag queen, or even acknowledge it's Barry Humphries. Yes, we're all in on the joke of course, but it's a testament to Barry's brilliance that he's created a character that is viewed as a separate entity altogether.

Although Barry was conservative, the snobbery and hypocrisy of the right was not lost on him, and he could take the piss out of the right and left with equal measure and still remain popular by both- except for a few disgruntled mentally ill Melbourne comedians.

Edna gave Barry the ability to take out his frustrations and insecurities out on people and society and bring them down under the guise of 'being in character'; it wasn't Barry who was insulting these egotistical celebrities, it was Edna, and he got away with it! Edna was passive aggression personified, Barry's passive aggression, stemming from his narcissistic mothers' ill treatment of him, and for the most part the arrogant celebrity deserved it.

Clearly Barry thought Chevy Chase an unfunny dickhead (he is) and so Edna put him in his place. There's also a great video of Edna on Parkinson ruthlessly putting Trinny and Sussanah (obnoxious British fashion socialites) in their place, they deserved it and apparently despised him thereafter.

repressing AGP transwomen who used drag as an outlet. Think Maddy Morphosis of yesteryear. He must have made up with is son, but for a while they had a very ugly public feud and he refused to speak to him.......

Comedians are almost never happy people in real life. They're filled with rage and frustration, which is why they become comedians in the first place.

I'm sure Barry Humphries was an awful son of a bitch, but I will always be madly in love with dame Edna.

He was a racist asshole.

Barry had a love hate relationship with Australia. He detested the conservative, middle class ordinariness, snobbery, and culturelessness of his upbringing, but the conflict was also that he was of it.

Barry didn't like his mothers' snobbery, but he was a snob. He deemed Australia a cultural wasteland (somewhat true) and decamped to London, but he was an Australian. He disliked stuffy academia, but he was academic. He had a distaste for the lowerclasses and vulgarity but his humor could be tremendously working class and crass. He was right wing but artistic and somewhat bohemian. He was a damaged, conflicted missfit and from there emerged his humor.

r33 HE was answering the letter IN CHARACTER as DAME EDNA, not himself! You'd expect Edna to assume only the help needed to know Spanish. Edna is ignorant, she's a 1950s suburban Australian housewife.

Edna was a racist, and a classist, and a narcissist, and a child abuser, etc, etc, and there lies in the humor, but she's a comedic character, she's not real!!! There's something wrong with someone who can't differentiate between an actor and their character. It was also 20 years ago.

[quote]This one seems to have been started before Barry died.

Or rather, The Barry Humphries Group, as he often corporately referred to himself.

I would love to watch Cher watch that show today & hear her commentary.

She always quickly became tiresome.

I know it was a planted question, but this is brilliant:

Viewer question: Dame Edna, how do I deal with sex after fifty?

Dame Edna: After fifty? Well most of us have only had one or two. After fifty you wouldn't be noticing anything, would you?

Barry Humphries was the Oscar Wilde of our time, wit-wise. I treasure memories of 3 live shows, and there are interviews of hers (both as host and guest, not that there was much difference) that I've watched dozens and dozens of time.

I couldn't care less about Humphries' politics or real-life persona, especially now that he's dead. Anyone who can pull off the special linked below has made my life better.

This is my favorite appearance she made on someone else's show. I was rolling the first time I saw it.

Loved her, she could be so unexpectedly crass, but Sir Les Patterson was even better

Dame Edna's braggy, wiseass, name dropping translated well to US audiences, but the other characters were too inside-joke for them.

Agreed, R41! That's right up there with the link I posted.

Dame Edna on Barry Humphries (near the beginning of interview)

I have never seen Judi Dench so uncomfortable.

I couldn't disagree more, R46! Dame Judi looks as if she's having the time of her life, and she seems to have a nice rapport with (of all people) Sharon Osbourne.

It looked as if the chairs didn’t rotate, so both women had to sit sideways in their chairs to look at Barry Humphries without turning their necks for an extended period of time. It made Dame Judy look like she was shying away from Humphries, but she was laughing at his jokes the whole time.

In addition, Dame Judy knew better than to interrupt the timing of Humphries’s monologues by saying anything, whereas Sharon Osborne kept interrupting him. Humphries was so quick with responses that it didn’t phase him, but a lesser comedian might have been thrown from Osbourne’s interruptions.

I love, love, love her. Loved her neighborhood watch show.

Genuinely funny, but, was reportedly a right wing turd, odd for someone who does drag for a living.

Saw Dame Edna twice in Boston with a group of friends in the early and mid 00s, about 5 years apart. We laughed so hard the first time, thought it was brilliant, but when we came back for another round it was the same exact show, line for line. Barry/Edna was that much older, and that seemed to factor into the comic timing and delivery being not quite so good as before.

my favorite edna bit.