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May 30, 2003
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.
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