In last weeks copy of The Bulletin Maxine McKew had lunch with Barry Humphries, the creator of Edna Everage and Sandy Stone. Most of the interview was light hearted:---really about the character of Edna, and it never really got beyond the public mask of the entertainer.
Humphries is back in Australia with a new comedy show. It is a return to the suburban roots of Melbourne, with all its snobbery and moral disapproval, rather than Edna as the international phenomenon who is a parody of celebrity and self-obsession. That Thacherite lady is more a part of British culture and a part of the London West End theatrical institution.
Humphries still sees Australia through the eyes of the 1950s: a divided, sectarian Australia that is still Anglophobic. Not much really. Not even a snippet on the role of comedy as cultural criticism.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at May 30, 2003 02:53 PM | TrackBack