More Please: An Autobiography

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It was at this point that he created the first incarnation of what became his best-known character, Edna Everage. The longevity of Dame Edna endured for more than sixty years, but in 2012 he announced his retirement from live performance. A self-proclaimed 'bibliomaniac', his house in West Hampstead, London, supposedly contains some 25,000 books, many of them first editions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Other exhibits the group mounted include "Creche Bang", a pram covered in meat and "Eye and Spoon Race", a spoon with a sheep's eye. During this time, he was a private in the Melbourne University Regiment, [7] serving a period of national service in the Citizens Military Force of the Australian Army.

Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization: Backstage with Barry Humphries by John Lahr.

As other Australian actors have begun to make a wider impression internationally, Edna did not hesitate to reveal that it was her mentorship which helped "kiddies" like "little Nicole Kidman" to achieve their early success. In May 2013, Australia's ABC Network announced that Humphries would be joining the cast of Australian telemovie series, Jack Irish, playing a high-profile judge in the third movie in the series. Humphries described this schooling, in a Who's Who entry, as "self-educated, attended Melbourne Grammar School". Barry Humphries tells of his Australian childhood in a comfortable suburb of Melbourne, and of his struggle to emerge from the clutches of his conventional, wealthy and doting parents into the persona of Dame Edna.

In 1961 when Humphries was in Cornwall with his wife, he fell over a cliff near Zennor and landed on a ledge 50 m (150 ft) below, breaking bones. Bazza Comes into His Own: The Final Fescennine Farago of Barry McKenzie, Australia's first working-class hero—with learned and scholarly appendices and a new enlarged glossary. It polarised the critics but was a hit with audiences and became the basis of a growing cult following in the UK. I would consider myself a Barry Humphries fan, but realised that I knew very little about him and his many varied talents.Together they produced First Day Covers, a collection of poems about suburbia – read in performance by Edna Everage – with accompanying music by Butterley. In September 1957, Humphries appeared as Estragon in Waiting for Godot, in Australia's first production of the Samuel Beckett play at the Arrow Theatre in Melbourne directed by Peter O'Shaughnessy who played Vladimir. He made numerous theatrical tours in Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and in the Far and Middle East.

The Dadaist pranks and performances he mounted in Melbourne were experiments in anarchy and visual satire which have become part of Australian folklore. The next Phillip Street revue was Around the Loop, which again teamed Oldaker, Gordon Chater, Blacklock and Humphries, plus newcomer June Salter.Humphries revived the Edna character (for what he said would be the last time) and the revue proved to be a major hit, playing eight shows a week for 14 months.

Becoming at first nostalgic, then adventurous and then deliriously successful, 'More Please' is an autobiography of a true aussie icon. His fourth wife (from 1990 until his death in 2023), Elizabeth Spender, previously an actor, is the daughter of British poet Sir Stephen Spender and the concert pianist Natasha Spender. Barry Humphries obituary: Entertainer's outrageous caricatures Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson took the one-man show to new heights". The same show opened in the United Kingdom at the Milton Keynes Theatre in October 2013 prior to a season of shows at the London Palladium and a national tour. The Adventures of Barry McKenzie starred singer Barry Crocker in the title role and featured Humphries—who co-wrote the script with Beresford—playing three different parts.Tributes were also given by members of the entertainment industry including Michael Parkinson, Eric Idle and Ricky Gervais. Dame Edna's Coffee Table Book: A guide to gracious living and the finer things of life by one of the first ladies of world theatre. It is always interesting to hear from Barry, and his memoir of his early life and career is no exception, especially when he is reading this audio version himself.