Barry Humphries has died part II

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serendipity

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The world needs more like him not less!!

Barry Humphries: ‘I defend to the ultimate my right to give deep and profound offence’

Between the end of the first world war and the rise of Hitler. It was a short-lived period in which jazz, expressionism and dadaism flourished. Humphries is a huge fan of this period. It shouldn’t surprise us. Dame Edna and Sir Les are caricatures every bit as savage as the paintings of Otto Dix or George Grosz.

Humphries says none of his characters give him quite as much pleasure as Australian ambassador Sir Les, best known for his puce cheeks, huge appendage and formidable frothing. “I enjoy playing Les more than any other character because it release my inner vulgarity. It liberates my repressed ribaldry.” In 1999, Sir Les appeared with Kylie Minogue at Nick Cave’s Meltdown, in a duet that concluded with him chasing her round the stage and whipping out his famous (and thankfully fake) “frightener”. Sir Les is an acquired taste. When I first came across him in my teens, I couldn’t believe somebody could be so disgusting on TV and get away with it – he was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture...w-offence-dame-edna-everage-sir-les-patterson
 
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A comic genius, a huge loss to the world.

Australian entertainer Barry Humphries, best known for his comic character Dame Edna Everage, has died aged 89.

The star had been in hospital in Sydney after suffering complications following hip surgery in March. He had a fall in February.

Humphries' most famous creation became a hit in the UK in the 1970s and landed her own TV chat show, the Dame Edna Everage Experience, in the late 1980s.

His other personas included the lecherous drunk Sir Les Patterson.

In a statement, his family remembered him as "completely himself until the very end, never losing his brilliant mind, his unique wit and generosity of spirit".

They said Humphries' fans were "precious to him", and said his characters, "which brought laughter to millions, will live on".

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute shortly after the news of Humphries' death broke.

"A great wit, satirist, writer and an absolute one-of-kind, he was both gifted and a gift," Mr Albanese said.


Melbourne-born Humphries moved to London in 1959, appearing in West End shows such as Maggie May and Oliver!

Inspired by the absurdist, avant-garde art movement Dada, he became a leading figure of the British comedy scene alongside contemporaries like Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore and Spike Milligan.

Broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell, a friend of Humphries, told the BBC he had an "extremely brilliant mind".

"A world in which I don't have the friendship of Barry Humphries is really painful. Because he was so resilient and energetic and loving and direct... that's a great absence in my life now," she said.

Comedian Rory Bremner described Humphries as "lightning quick, subversive, mischievous... & savagely funny" in a tweet.

He said with his passing "we lose an all-time great".

Actor and comedian Rob Brydon also described Humphries as a "true great who inspired me immeasurably" and said it was a "delight to call him my friend".

He said he was with him only three days ago, where he was "as ever, making me laugh".

Australian actor Jason Donovan tweeted a photo of himself with Dame Edna and said Humphries was "quite simply an entertaining genius".

Ricky Gervais described Humphries as a "comedy genius" while former Mock The Week host Dara Ó Briain said he was "one of the absolute funniest people ever".

Little Britain actor Matt Lucas tweeted a picture of him with Humphries, saying: "Quite simply, you were the greatest."

Former prime minister Boris Johnson, who edited the Spectator magazine that Humphries contributed to, said he was "one of the greatest-ever Australians - and a comic genius".

Sir Elton John said: "Barry was the funniest man ever. AND, the sweetest man ever. What a sad day."

Andrew Lloyd Webber shared a photo of himself with Humphries and wrote: "No more will we share obscure composers and unfashionable Victoriana. How I'll miss you."

'Hello possums!'
In 1955, Humphries introduced Mrs Norman Everage, the housewife from Moonee Ponds, a suburb in Melbourne, in a university production.

It was the first iteration of the irrepressible character that would define his career.

Humphries said his creation was supposed to last only a week.

Instead, it blossomed into Dame Edna, his gaudy, sharp-tongued comic alter ego who would leave audiences in stitches in Australia and beyond for decades. He said the character was based on his own mother.

"Edna was painfully shy at first," Humphries told the Guardian in 2018. "Hard to believe!"

She became more outrageous as the years went on, and was famed for her lilac-rinsed hair, flamboyant glasses and catchphrase: "Hello possums!"

Dame Edna surprised the then Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, at the Royal Variety show in 2019 when she sat near the two and joked "they've found me a better seat" before moving.

Humphries appeared as Dame Edna on stage, on screen and in print throughout his long career
Humphries even wrote an autobiography, My Gorgeous Life, as the character.

His other popular characters on stage and screen included the more grandfatherly Sandy Stone.

He said of Stone in 2016 that he could "finally feel myself turning into him".

Humphries also presented six series for BBC Radio 2, the latest being a three part series celebrating 100 years of the BBC.

The commissioning executive for Radio 2, Laura Busson, said his series "Barry Humphries Forgotten Musical Masterpieces" was hugely popular with audiences, and would be published on BBC Sounds today as a tribute to the comedian.

The comic actor, author, director and scriptwriter, who was also a keen landscape painter, announced a farewell tour for his satirical one-man stage show in 2012. But he returned last year with a series of shows looking back at his career.

His other credits included voicing the shark Bruce in 2003 Pixar animated film Finding Nemo, as well as appearances in 1967 comedy Bedazzled, Spice World, The Hobbit and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie.

Humphries was made an Officer of the Order of Australia, one of the country's highest civic honours, in 1982.

Later in his career, he was criticised for referring to gender affirmation surgery as "self-mutilation" and described transgender identity as a "fashion".

But his fans in Australia are mourning the loss of a comedy legend.

He was married four times, and leaves behind his wife Lizzie Spender and four children.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65328507
 
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serendipity said:
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The world needs more like him not less!!

Barry Humphries: ‘I defend to the ultimate my right to give deep and profound offence’

Between the end of the first world war and the rise of Hitler. It was a short-lived period in which jazz, expressionism and dadaism flourished. Humphries is a huge fan of this period. It shouldn’t surprise us. Dame Edna and Sir Les are caricatures every bit as savage as the paintings of Otto Dix or George Grosz.

Humphries says none of his characters give him quite as much pleasure as Australian ambassador Sir Les, best known for his puce cheeks, huge appendage and formidable frothing. “I enjoy playing Les more than any other character because it release my inner vulgarity. It liberates my repressed ribaldry.” In 1999, Sir Les appeared with Kylie Minogue at Nick Cave’s Meltdown, in a duet that concluded with him chasing her round the stage and whipping out his famous (and thankfully fake) “frightener”. Sir Les is an acquired taste. When I first came across him in my teens, I couldn’t believe somebody could be so disgusting on TV and get away with it – he was one of the funniest things I’d ever seen.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture...w-offence-dame-edna-everage-sir-les-patterson
Click to expand...


Dear Serendipity,


I presume you are an American, as the vast majority of posters on JPP are Yanks? If so, it is interesting that you are such a great admirer of Barry Humphries. Barry did have some success in America with his Dame Edna Everidge character, but I don't think the same was true for Sir Leslie Collin Patterson ( 'that's "Padderson" with a "t" ', as Sir Les - who had always been drinking - would slur and sputter to his audience). Sir Lesl, was however, always very open and honest about his drinking. Shortly after he began his televised interviews with hosts like Michael Parkinson, or shortly after arriving on stage at a theatre in Soho, he would often often hold his hand up, pause, and say in a very earnest manner: "Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm not going to insult your intelligence by saying that I haven't had anything to drink - BECAUSE I HAVE ! In fact, I'm full as a race-day tram - full, as a Boxing Day shit-house - full, Ladies and Gentlemen, as a "Fairies Phone Book". Are you with me?" Sir Les, as you know, was the Australian government's "Cultural Attache to the Court of St James", and he was Knighted, in the early 1970's by the former, Australian Prime Minister, Edward Gough Whitlam, who was a bumptious, "larger-than-life", left-wing populist (not to mention an outspoken Australian rebublican)



I was extremely interested to see your reference Otto Dix, because I have always thought that the paintings of Otto Dix provide IMO, THE best key to understanding Barry Humphrys genius as a comedian (an a humourist) . I wondered how an American (like you) would know about the connection between Otto Dix and Barry Humphreys? Here's my take on Barry and his work....


Barry always said that his favourite historical era was the period between 1919 and 1933 when the Weimar Republic was established. In Germany. In big cities like Berlin and Zurich, there was a exhilarating and spectacular "explosion of culture in the arts. New experimental forms of music were being played in the clubs and bars of Berlin, like American Jazz, painters like Otto Dix, and many others, took the expressionist genre in new directions. Likewise, writers tested out new literary prose styles or poetic devices in the realm of belles lettresThere was a tremendous receptiveness to new ideas and behaviours. In Berlin openly homosexual men and women, trangender indiviiduals (what we call the LGBTQ community in 2023) were welcome in places like night clubs and theatres and free to engage in "queer" behviours (like men kissing each other or holding hands. Some males work wearing bright red lipstick and heavy facial cosmetics when they went "out on the town" in Berlin, simply because that is how they wished to present themselves. Others who were perhaps bone fide transexuals wore dresses along and other feminine appurtenances (the same applied for woman who were "gender - benders." In Berlin and other big urban centres in Germany (like Zurich) there was a very relaxed attitude to sexual promiscuity; it didn't matter whether you were straight or gay or bi-sexual - there was a lot of fucking (pardon the French) going on. Kind of like the late 1960's counter-cultural revolution in the US, where Hippies and other young people were preaching "Free Love" and screwing each other in the mud at "Woodstock. I'm not sure what really happened in the later part of the 1960s, but everyone says there was a sexual revolution? I think that if that's true, then it had nothing on the kind of sexual liberation that happened in the metropolises of Germany during the Weimar Republic.


Have you ever watched the classic, 1972, movie, "Cabaret" starring Lisa Minnelli. The film is set in Berlin in the 1920's during the Weimar Republic, and the first scene is set inside a "Cabaret Club"It does a good job of depicting the reality of Cabarets in the Weimar years, which were places where Black American jazz was happening, there was a very erotic/sexual vibe with plenty of burlesque and so on, not to mention open prostitution. If you were to fly to Berlin, next week, you would be able to visit "Cabaret" Clubs , just like the "Kit Kat Club" in the movie. After the Second World War, when Germany eventually managed to "pick up the pieces" and put things back together again, Berlin seemed to automatically revive much of the artistic spirit/elan of the Weimar years. By that, I mean - as far as the "cultural domain" was (and still is to this day) concerned - there are always exciting, risque, hyper-stylish, outre, daring, "cutting edge", new forms of:art, literature, music, architecture, sculpture, political activism, cuisine , etc happening in Berlin. If you haven't visited Berlin, I can thoroughly recommend it to you for a future vacation.


So, returning to Otto Dix, Dix fought for Germany in the First World War, and was embittered by the experience. The horrors of the war- the bloodshed, witnessing the futile violent deaths of so many men and the devastation of so many lives made him a very cynical man, full of who the French call "ressentiment". This is their term for an especially seething, fuming, bottled and acidic of resentment. Being a chemist, the term ressentiment" always brings to mind an image, namely, taking the cork out of the top of a large, 4 - litre, bottle of nitric acid. When you remove the cork, you then see fumes of concentrated nitric acid vapours slowly rising up out of the bottle. It looks like steam coming off a very hot cup of coffee that you are drinking in freezing cold weather. Concentrated nitric acid is extremely nasty stuff, if you spill it on yourself it can injure you very badly, very quickly. See the fumes "seething" out of the bottle, reminds me of just how caustic and "vicious" the liquid inside is. This explains 50% of Otto Dix's paintings. Most of his portraits were satirical. 50% of the art of satire is criticism - that is, strident heartfelt, moral critique. Satire is intended as be attack/assault against something or someone that the aatirist (be it Otto Dix or Barry Humphreys) absolutely despises... utterly loathes. But the successful satirist is an artist who understands that to vent one's raw hatred in the form of verbal or physical violence is a primitive strategy that will only ever harms both your target and yourself and in so doing will resolves nothing, This is why the other 50% of satire is that it must be entertaining ( either aesthetically pleasing/intriguing in the case of Otto Dix's portraits and prints or laugh-out-loud funny in the case of artistic creations Dame Edna or Sir Les Patterson. A man who is a master satirist has a unique, rare and innate ability to blend or meld the two halves that constitute sature, that is: (1) SAVAGE, CAUSTIC (moral) CRITIQUE and (2)TREMENDOUSly PLEASURABLE (aesthetic) ENTERTAINMENT{/B]. The master satirist has the ability to effect a seamless, organic, "communion" of the two different and typically separate halves. If you want to really destroy someone or something that you think is (morally) bad, wrong, evil, satire is one of the most most efficient, humane and comprehensive ways to go about it PROVIDED you have the kind of brilliant mind that an Otto Dix or a Barry Humphreys had. If you try to use satire without having the kind of intelligence (and other skills) it requires, it will back-fire on you, BIG TIME and it will be your own ass that gets kicked. Percy Byssche Shelley, the great English Romantic poet, made an apt remark about a brilliant satirist of his time (I forget now who it was) when he said: "His fine wit makes such a wound, the knife is lost in it." Sir Les Patterson is a perfect example, Barry Humphries is using this character to lash out at the aspects of the "normal", "respectable" Australian male personality of the later half of the 20th - century that he absolutely despised: the sexist chauvinism, the drinking culture, the obsession with sports like football and cricket, the obsession with/ terror of, "poofters," the unwitting vulgarity and almost non-existent social graces, the bumptious ignorance and suspicion of intellectuals and higher culture in the arts, the covert misogyny and so on. Not only were many of the common or garden variety , everyday Australian men genuinely like this, i.e. "rough diamonds" as Sir Les called them, but the truth was that so were many members of Australian political establishment - in particular the Australian Labor Party in the 1970s, for instance.




I must quickly mention one of Barry Humphrys lesser-known characters. This persona was a corrupt Union boss called "Lance Boyle." Lance Boyle was the Head of the "ACUNT." When his telephone would ring on stage, Lance would pick it up and say into the mouthpiece" "Lance Boyle, A -C-U-N-T !" :) (I think he was a dig at Bob Hawke who was an Australian Labor Prime Minister in the 1980s (the Labour Party is roughly equivalent to the Democrat Party in the US, at least as it was up until Y2k). Hawke was the President of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, ACTU, which was effectively an organ the Australian Labour The Trade unions in Australia had a very bad reputation for corruption, extortion, intimidation and the like, throughout the later decades of last century. Lance Boyle was essentially a Union thug who had worked his way up the ladder and was now a member of Senior Management in the politically powerful "ACUNT". Lance (Barry Humphrys) typically appeared on stage dressed in an beautifully embroidered, Japanese silk dressing gown, having his feet and neck massaged by young oriental prostitutes, drinking beer from a can and receiving frequent calls on his bedside telephone. From what he said on the telephone it was patently obvious that crooked business deal were being cut with different union bosses or that he was ordering prostitutes to be sent to his hotel room (specifying hair colours, breast size and hinting at sexual services he would like provided, etc.) Finally, I Bob Hawke a heavy beer drinker and a notorious philanderer, prone to embarrassing malapropisms social gaffes (such as calling a group of pensioners critical of his policy, "Silly old bastards" on live TV) its easy to see where the inspiration for a number of Barrys's characters lay. Oh Yeah, I must mention one of Barry's experimental characters that he decided not to develop. This was a blonde-haired, dyspeptic, early middled-aged Australian male, weary large, gauche pieces of gold jewellery named "Snow Complications ( In Australia men with very fair hair were sometimes nicknamed "Snow" in Barry's era) so Snow Complications" is a word-play on "No Complications", because the character is a dodgy venture capitalists, who philosophy of life is "Ya got get in fast an rip the fat out - rip the fat out and get out fast". He referring to making fast bucks on what are clearly unethical and/or questionably legal businesses dealing ( as he has a habit of saying "Ya know what i mean, Right" then giving a quick wink to the audience as he discusses his work. One of Barry Humphrys brilliant touches was to have "Snow" - who,as I mentioned, is clearly afflicted with chronic (stress-induced) dyspepsia; periodically confronted in cramp-like muscular spasms, after which he immediately breaks wind or belches with a loud "rasp" (and without excusing himself). Snow appears to be blithely unaware of these eructions and simply continues giving his advice to the audience.



To be continued ( PS :I could talk to you about Barry Humphrys forever; he always was/will be, one of my greatest heroes)
 
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