Dame Edna | Uncyclopedia | Fandom powered by Wikia Jump to: navigation , search You may be looking for Germaine Greer and not even know it! Dame Edna looking like an insane flamingo and dancing like an insane turkey (hardly much difference is there). Dame Edna Everage, more commonly known as Damn Eddie Average is a half-man-half-woman television personality who was dubbed by Queen Elizabeth II in 300BC for being the world's oldest prostitute. She/he was born in Austria and rose to the position of Crown Princess. However, in 1788 she visited neighbouring Hungary and accidently caught a plane back to Australia where she was mistaken for Dame Nellie Melba (mistress of Lord Melbourne and anonymous inventor of the Peach Melba) and hailed as a great music hall entertainer and slut. She was successful in her early years, but now somewhat struggles to find sex with anyone nowadays, which is the reason why no one will ever see anyone that looks like Dame Edna while walking around a mall or park or public toilet.

A few elderly men have attempted to have sexual intercourse with her, but ended up having the fright of their lives after she undressed, as she is a woman with a penis , a deformity she shares with her cousin, Dame Margaret Thatcher . Note that her name should not be confused with Mount Etna . That is the name of a volcano, although the words "Mount Edna" ("Edna begatten") have been on the lips of many of her Austrian countrymen including Adolph Hitler . (Damn! Godwin's Law again!) The is what Dame Edna looks like today. She looked hot back in the day. Must have been seductive and dominant in bed. She's an old hag now. edit Battle Scene Dame Edna is most famous for her appearance in the 1700BC war documentary, Lord of the Rings as one of the 124350139426589713650103451634 individuals in this massive army with extra-large elephants. Dame Edna is seen about half a mile from where this photo was taken...you see her?

It is not known why she was there, but according to Damn Edna, it was a war against fags, with all the homosexuals , semi-homosexuals and gay elephants vs the Westboro Baptist Church , all of whom were armed with " God Hates Fags " protest signs. 124350139426589713650103451632 people lost their lives, proving that she's a mighty good fighter and a success at beating people over the head to death with her pet chihuahua . Fred Phelps , however, was the only one other than Edna to still exist, as he was the only one who was inside a forcefield bubble. She later married Mr Barry Humphries, whom she made the world's first ever semi-homosexual man to be successfully married. Edna during the Hitler era. Also, in 1957, she dated The Joker for a short period of time, making her the fourth human being to have sexual intercourse with a relative of Ronald McDonald other than Ronald himself - in this case, Ronald's father.

Dame Edna drawned by a lovely young boy Desert Island Discs: 75 defining moments from 75 years of castaways <p>The show’s first guest was marooned three quarters of a century ago this month. Here are the moments that made Desert Island Discs a radio classic<br></p><p><strong>1.</strong> The first castaway – marooned on 29 January 1942 – was <strong>Vic Oliver</strong>, a music-hall star in the 1930s. He was the perfect first interviewee for presenter Roy Plomley, the Wodehousian wannabe actor who devised the show. The first guest was supposed to be the philosopher CEM Joad, but he was indisposed. Who knows how broadcasting history would have turned out if Joad had made it to the recording.</p><p><strong>2.</strong> The second castaway, on 5 February 1942, was the critic <strong>James Agate</strong>.

Incestuously, one of his musical choices was Eric Coates’s By the Sleepy Lagoon, the programme’s theme music (which was inspired not by a tropical island, but by Bognor Regis). Agate was gay, but Plomley would never have dreamed of discussing such subjects – either in 1942 or 40 years later, when he was still presenting the show.</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="">Symphonies in sea – 75 years of Desert Island Discs</a> </p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Desert Island Discs Les Patterson Saves the World rewatched: a spectactular turkey <p>Australian cinema is not without its jaw-dropping flops and this messy, misjudged Barry Humphries vehicle was one of them – even with Dame Edna</p><p><br>If Hollywood is the mecca for international moviemaking – a place where much of the magic happens – it is also the giant-sized laboratory where botched experiments explode most spectacularly.

Cinema history books are littered with tales of bigger than Ben-Hur (or should that be bigger than <a href="">Battlefield Earth?</a>) box office disasters and a degree of guilty pleasure can be gleaned from reading about them. </p><p>Australian cinema operates on far lower overheads but our film industry is not without jaw-dropping flops to call its own. One of the most legendary is 1987’s Les Patterson Saves the World, co-written by and starring Barry Humphries as one of his alter egos.

</p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="">The Adventures of Barry McKenzie rewatched – crude but charming</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="">Barry Humphries: Australia's arts cuts linked to 'fundamental philistinism'</a> </p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Comedy Germaine Greer and Ian Thorpe to bare all in Canberra exhibition <p>National Portrait Gallery show featuring nude portraits of Ian Thorpe, Billy Slater and Dame Edna will explores issues of identity and personality, says curator</p><p>The National Portrait Gallery in Canberra has announced a revealing new exhibition <a href="">Bare: Degrees of Undress</a>, featuring Dame Edna Everage, Olympian Ian Thorpe and INXS frontman Michael Hutchence in various states of undress.</p><p>Exhibition curator Penelope Grist has drawn together more than 90 portraits of well-known faces from the gallery’s collection to explore issues of identity and personality as well as audiences reactions to bareness.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Photography Barry Humphries: Australia's arts cuts linked to 'fundamental philist

inism' <p>Back to direct the Adelaide cabaret festival, Humphries has some advice for George Brandis from Sir Les and says he’s still available for 21st birthdays</p><p>Australia’s cultural attaché to the court of St James, <a href="">Dr Sir Leslie Colin Patterson KCB AO</a>, is compiling a set list for his forthcoming foray into cabaret.

</p><p>The director of the Adelaide cabaret festival, Barry Humphries, says Sir Les, whose stained powder-blue jacket and clashing tie are as colourful as his overbite, “may have to send his suit to the cleaner, and also his repertoire”, which includes <a href="">Help Me Make it Through the Night</a>, Please Release Me and the Bette Midler torch song <a href="">The Rose.</a></p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="">After the budget: shh! Australia's era of artistic silencing begins</a> </p><p> <span>Related: </span><a href="">Dame Edna Everage: farewell possums</a> </p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Cabaret The 2015 Great Comic Relief Bake Off celebrity lineup is cause for celebration <p>In the bleak winter TV schedules, there’s nothing quite like watching celebrities being rubbish at baking.

And, from Dame Edna Everage, Jennifer Saunders and Victoria Wood to Alexa Chung and Zoella, this time I’ve actually heard of all but one of them</p><p>At a time of year when the TV schedules are as cold and bleak as a weekend break in Albert Square, it was rather lovely to wake up to news of impending comfort TV – the return of The Great Comic Relief Bake Off on BBC1. It’s my favourite of all the Comic Relief TV spin-offs, because there truly is nothing that warms the cockles quite like watching celebrities being rubbish at baking.</p><p>It’s the fourth year we’ve been treated to a Comic Relief/Sport Relief Celebrity Bake Off, broadcast over four nights beginning on 11 February. Each episode sees four celebrities create the usual three bakes under the watchful eye of judges Paul and Mary, before one is crowned starbaker. For some reason this year there’s no grand final, where the heat winners compete for the overall title. Presumably this is because it’s not actually about winning, but demonstrating where you rank on the Celebrity Baking Ineptitude Scale. Like Star In A Reasonably Priced Car, but with sponge.

</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> The Great British Bake Off Comic Relief The Australians who set 60s Britain swinging Documentary tells how Clive James, Germaine Greer, Barry Humphries and Robert Hughes, helped spawn Britain's counter-culture<p>The England of the 1960s was in the vanguard of cultural change. In music, fashion, art and satire, it seemed to set the pace and, even today, the "swinging" status of that era is seldom challenged. But according to a new documentary presented by the novelist Howard Jacobson, it was the Aussies what swung it.</p><p>Without four key arrivals from Australia: the writer and critic Clive James, the academic and feminist Germaine Greer, the satirist Barry Humphries and the cultural historian Robert Hughes, the 60s wouldn't have been the same.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Documentary Paying to play: the rise and risks of audience participation From Privacy to Eat Pray Laugh, getting theatregoers on stage is growing in popularity.

Does participation always add value to a theatre production, or can it be a laborious distraction?<br /><br /><a href="">• Read Michael Billington's review of Privacy</a><p>Theatregoing is often classified as relaxation. However, anyone attending some of this summer's shows should be ready to do some work. Privacy, <a href="" title="">James Graham's tremendous play at the Donmar</a> about the consequences of new media and communication, asks its audience, in contradiction of regular theatrical protocol, not only to switch their mobiles on, but to use them – as directed by the actors.</p><p>Kevin Toolis's <a href="" title="">The Confessions of Gordon Brown</a>, starting another run at the Ambassadors theatre in June, includes a more old-fashioned type of interactivity, as Ian Grieve, who uncannily embodies the former Labour prime minister in this enjoyable monologue, poses questions to the audience and sometimes has to answer them too.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Stage Australian comedy A-Z: E is for Everage – housewife gigastar <p>Welcome back to our sporadic and subjective consideration of Australian comedy.

Share your umbrage at exclusions and saucy suggestions for selection in the comments<br></p><p>Housewife "gigastar", and perhaps Australia's single most famous comedy export, <a href="">Edna Everage claims in her autobiography</a><i> </i>to have been born in the humble New South Wales inland township of Wagga Wagga. From there she relocated to the developing suburbia of Melbourne's Moonee Ponds and, on 12 December 1955, she made her first public stage appearance at Melbourne University's Union theatre, to promote herself as a potential "Olympic hostess" for the 1956 Olympic Games. She boasted of a home furnished with wall-to-wall burgundy carpet "and reindeers frosted on glass dining-room doors". </p><p>Edna's true origin – as is celebrity habit – diverges from accounts provided by her creator, the multitalented Australian writer-performer <a href="">Barry Humphries</a>, although Humphries has always been mindful to delineate "Mrs Norm Everage" as not a performance by himself in drag but a separate entity to whom he refers in the third person.

</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Comedy Dame Edna Everage on Britain, Barry Humphries and her long goodbye Unveiling a new portrait of herself in London on Australia Day, star says UK is looking 'more rundown than ever'<p>"Who knows what it is to be Australian?" Dame Edna Everage is trying to drum up some advice for the <a href="" title="">17,900 people newly sworn in as her compatriots</a> as part of the Australia Day celebrations back home. "What it is to be Australian, really," she says, warming to her theme, "is to be prepared to pay slightly more for everything. Not to mind when it is very warm. To wear beach clothes in the city and flip-flops to work – if you must."</p><p>Just as she seems set to take off on an impromptu flight of patriotic fancy to match her sparkling Commonwealth Star frock and its Sydney Opera House shoulder pads, Dame Edna stops and looks at me earnestly through her diamante-studded spectacles. "I've never really thought of myself as Australian.

I think of myself as an international gigastar."</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Dame Edna Everage Barry Humphries: Eat, Pray, Laugh – review <strong>London Palladium and touring</strong><br />Les, Sandy and of course Edna are on top form for Barry Humphries's farewell tour as the consummate entertainer shows he has lost none of his brilliance<p>Dame Edna Everage has been burned out by showbusiness and is retiring to an ashram. Fortunately, her creator, Barry Humphries, now 79, is still a formidable presence on stage in what purports to be his <a href="" title="">farewell tour</a>.</p><p>Humphries is the consummate entertainer, beloved by fans and fellow comics alike over the decades, though this is largely down to the brilliance of Edna, who will go down in history as one of the great comedy creations of all time. Personally, I've always struggled with <a href="" title="">Sir Les Patterson</a>, his second-string character, in anything more than small doses.

Here, he takes up most of the first half, reinventing himself as a celebrity chef while spraying his audience and his rissoles with pints of saliva. This is the comedy of bodily fluids, outrageous anti-PC comments and casual misogyny – originally intended to satirise a particular kind of Australian male, though the satire recedes in favour of pure slapstick as Humphries glories in provoking squeals of disgust.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Dame Edna Everage Eat Pray Laugh! Barry Humphries' Farewell Tour – review <strong>London Palladium</strong><br />Dame Edna's creator pushes the bad taste boundaries in this raucous show that confirms just what a rare bird he is<p>In a theatre shorn of outsize personalities, the idea of a Barry Humphries farewell is a matter for regret. Not that the old boy is going quietly.

His new show is a raucous, lewd, politically incorrect affair that confirms just what a rare bird Humphries is: a fine character actor, a comedian who can hold a vast house such as the Palladium in his grip, and a social satirist with a gift for outrage.</p><p>Outrageous is indeed the only word for Sir Les Patterson. Formerly the Australian cultural attache, he now aspires to become a celebrity chef and stages a cooking demo in spite of his constant farting, belching and urgent trips to the dunny. But what is fascinating about Sir Les is that his cartoon grotesquerie allows him to get away with murder. At one point he pointedly inquires, apropos immigration: "Is there anyone in Poland? I reckon it's the Marie Celeste of Europe." In other hands the remark would cause huge offence.

Coming from the dribbling lips of a man whose whole persona represents the antediluvian aspects of the Antipodes, it seems totally in character.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Dame Edna Everage Photographer Lewis Morley donates archive to the nation Man who chronicled changing Britain of the 60s agreed before his death last week to give his photographs to museum<p>The photographer Lewis Morley, the acclaimed chronicler of the outburst of cultural energy in Britain in the 1960s, who died in Australia last week, had donated an extraordinary archive of tens of thousands of his photographs and personal papers to a public collection in Britain, the <em>Observer</em> can reveal.</p><p>In an unusual move for a major British photographer, Morley and his family and close friends spent years amassing his papers and images and preparing to transfer them to a publicly accessible collection in the UK, rather than consigning them to the open market for sale through auction houses around the world.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Photography Former Inbetweeners prepare to take flight with Chickens series premiere Simon Bird and Joe Thomas write and star in the brand new, first world war Britcom with

 their longtime collaborator Jonny Sweet<p>They make for an unlikely combination − two of the stars of the Britcom phenomenon, The Inbetweeners, and Barry Humphries, about to embark on his swansong tour as Dame Edna Everage.</p><p>But little about <a href="" title="">Sky1 sitcom Chickens</a> has been run of the mill: a <a href="" title="">pilot version of the first world war comedy</a> was originally broadcast on Channel 4 but the station decided not to proceed with a series.

Big-spending Sky then beat the BBC to the show, which will now take flight with a six-part run beginning on Thursday.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Television Barry 'Dame Edna' Humphries returns to UK TV screens Australian comedian ruffles feathers as a headmaster in Sky1 sitcom Chickens, set during first world war<p>Barry Humphries, the Australian comedian behind <a href="" title="">Dame Edna Everage</a>, is returning to UK TV with a role in a comedy set during the first world war.</p><p>Humphries will play a headmaster who takes a dim view of three young men who remain in England rather than fight on the western front in the Sky1 sitcom Chickens. The three leads are played by The Inbetweeners stars Simon Bird and Joe Thomas, and Jonny Sweet.

The trio also share writing duties.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Dame Edna Everage Loudon Wainwright III: Older Than My Old Man Now – review (Proper)<p>There's nothing Loudon Wainwright likes more than mixing gloom with humour – and the realisation he has now lived for longer than his father is the perfect excuse for a concept album about death. There are 14 new songs here, along with an exquisite ballad he wrote with Kate McGarrigle back in the 70s, all dealing with "death'n'decay". And it works, thanks to his bleak wit, his ability to match thoughtful lyrics against varied, mostly blues-based settings, and help from special guests. So the opening The Here &amp; the Now is a cheerfully swinging condensed autobiography in which he's joined by his four children (Rufus and Martha Wainwright included, of course) and jazz guitarist John Scofield.

Rufus appears on The Days That We Die, too, which includes a recitation written by&nbsp;Loudon's journalist dad, while on Double Lifetime, he's joined for a Woody Guthrie-style talking blues by the great veteran Ramblin' Jack Elliott. Best of all, there's an improbable duet with Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries) on the bittersweet I Remember Sex. I can't imagine anyone else even attempting a song like that.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> Loudon Wainwright III The news at vin - here's to Reggie, the newsreader | Simon Hoggart Theresa May's minimum price for alcohol wouldn't have slowed Reginald Bosanquet one jot<p>✒ Great to hear Anna Ford on Desert Island Discs, talking about Reggie Bosanquet, her fellow newsreader. I recalled working in Northern Ireland, when it was a popular pastime among army officers to see just how drunk he was while reading the News at Ten.

Their admiration was for the way that, in spite of his clear and obvious inebriation, he somehow managed to keep going without missing a word.</p><p>When ITN was based near Oxford Circus, he used to spend most of his time between bulletins in a wine bar diagonally opposite the studio. I met him once. It was 5.55pm. He walked out of the green room carrying two enormous goblets of red wine. They must have contained almost a bottle between them.</p> <a href="">Continue reading...</a> TV news Dame Edna to retire after 60 years of comedy - Telegraph Dame Edna to retire after 60 years of comedy Dame Edna Everage will retire after completing her last tour, her creator has said. Barry Humphries created Dame Edna 60 years ago Photo: Getty Images Follow Barry Humphries, 79, said he will not tour in drag again and will retire after taking his tour through Britain and America. The comedian created Dame Edna, the Tony Award-winning drag act known for her purple hair and oversized rhinestone eyeglasses, 60 years ago.

He told The Times: “As I approach the autumn of my life, I take it a bit more quietly. I couldn't ever relinquish what I do, but it's certainly farewell to touring. I'll do one-offs on television and that kind of stuff. I'll continue to work till I drop." He recently completed his Eat Pray Laugh! farewell tour of Australia and will repeat the show at 11 locations in Britain before a Journey to America. He said he was tired of "waking up in strange hotel bedrooms where I can't find the bathroom or turn on the light” but added he could consider performances for 21st birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. Related Articles The truth about my alter ego Dame Edna 16 Sep 2010 Mr Humphries told the newspaper: "She really is like the old dressing-up box we had as kids. You pull her up and she's wearing a new set of ideas. She's an embracer. She talks about Journeys now, for God's sake. "She's kind of automatic. I'm a bit hoist by my own petard ... Going around denying she's a real person is a bit like denying there's a Santa Claus.

So I'm rather spoilt by my own brilliance." Dame Edna will perform at the Palladium during the London part of his tour, which runs from October 2013 to March 2014. Mr Humphries said that although it was a farewell tour, he would make an exception by returning to Britain for pantomime, and would do it in Wimbledon. He said that being Dame Edna for so long had given him a small insight into what it was like to be a woman, added: “I think women have a better sense of humour. I've always found that women have more of a handle on things." BBC Arts - BBC at the Edinburgh Festivals, 2016 - Life is a cabaret: Barry Humphries on swapping Dame Edna for Weimar Germany Life is a cabaret: Barry Humphries on swapping Dame Edna for Weimar Germany 21 July 2016 He may be best known for his comic creation Dame Edna Everage, but Australian performer Barry Humphries has nursed a passion for the 1930s German cabaret scene ever since he was a teenager.

As the 82-year-old prepares to perform his Weimar Cabaret show in London, before taking it to the Edinburgh International Festival, WILLIAM COOK meets him at home to talk Kurt Weill, underground Berlin and 'degenerate music'. Richard Tognetti (Artistic Director and Lead Violin of the ACO), Satu Vänskä (Principal Violin at the ACO), Barry Humphries and Meow Meow on the 2013 tour Visiting Barry Humphries in his London home is a very strange experience. Of course every performer is different offstage, but Humphries is a completely different person. Onstage, he’s Dame Edna Everage, the DayGlo Antipodean diva who’s never afraid to speak her mind. Offstage he’s urbane and erudite, a lover of European culture with a house full of books and paintings. It’s an evening of so-called degenerate music, which is the name the Nazis gave it Barry Humphries This is the real Humphries, and this summer you can see him performing his Weimar Cabaret show, in London and then in Edinburgh, accompanied by the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Humphries has already toured Australia with this show, where it went down very well. “It’s very accessible and jazzy,” he says, over coffee in his book-lined dining room. “It’s an evening of music – so-called degenerate music, which is the name the Nazis gave it.” He’s joined onstage by Meow Meow, aka Australian cabaret artiste Melissa Madden Gray. Humphries has always had a special passion for Central European culture, above all the cabaret scene in Germany between the end of the First World War and the advent of the Third Reich. Germany’s Weimar Republic was an era of political chaos, but what’s bad news for politicians is good news for satirists, and between 1918 and 1933 Germany’s cabaret clubs thrived. Berlin in particular became a hotbed of decadent, subversive entertainment, until Hitler came to power and promptly snuffed it out. Humphries’ first taste of Weimar cabaret came as a small child in his native Melbourne.

It was the late 1930s, and Hitler had yet to go to war, but a lot of the artistes he’d persecuted had already fled, a good many of them Down Under. When they performed on Australian radio, Humphries was entranced. When he became a teenager, his interest in this ‘degenerate’ genre took off. He says: “I used to trawl the second hand bookshops of Melbourne, and I found a great stack of music. It was music of the pre-Hitler period, by composers I’d never heard of. I investigated this repertoire and found out that it was generally banned. It was by Jewish composers who’d either been murdered or forced into exile. So I began with a very keen interest in this submerged art of that period, both in painting and in music and in literature.” Barry Humphries (Photo: Helen White) He became fascinated by the European avant-garde, particularly Dada and Surrealism. He started performing Surrealist stunts on the streets of Melbourne, playing eccentric and outrageous characters “pour épater la bourgeoisie”.

When Humphries became an entertainer, in Australia in the 1950s, he got to know some of the refugee composers who’d found their way Down Under, and became a keen collector of their recordings. He imported an old German record of Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera , long before it was popularised by Louis Armstrong’s cover version of Mack The Knife. [Weimar Cabaret] was a reaction to the terribly safe, hygienic life of suburban Australia in the 1950s Barry Humphries Humphries’ show features several songs from Weill’s Threepenny Opera, plus less familiar numbers by Wilhelm Grosz, an Austrian composer who fled to London, and went on to write Tin Pan Alley hits like Red Sails In The Sunset. So what was it about Weimar Cabaret which Humphries found so alluring? As a middle class Australian, growing up in Melbourne, it’s hard to imagine an art form less applicable to his daily life. However for Humphries, this incongruity was Weimar Cabaret’s main attraction. A frustrated artist and intellectual, he felt stifled by the bourgeois values of his Australian upbringing.

Kurt Weill was the soundtrack of the life he yearned for. “It was a reaction to the terribly safe, hygienic life of suburban Australia in the 1950s, which was hell,” he says. “It was so nice! I call it the politics of niceness. Everything had to be nice, and out of this sprang characters of mine like Edna, who personified niceness.” Weimar Cabaret was the opposite of nice. Humphries grew up with a “hankering for Europe,” and in 1959 he came to London: “I needed a more bracing, competitive, climate.” Here he found the creative habitat he craved. During the 1960s, the Big Smoke became one of the most happening cities in the world, and Humphries was centre stage. He appeared in Lionel Bart’s Oliver! and Spike Milligan’s The Bed Sitting Room, but it was as a comedian rather than an actor that he really made his mark. Peter Cook was one of the first people to spot Humphries’ comic potential, booking him at The Establishment, his satirical night club in London’s Soho.

It was at The Establishment that Humphries unveiled Mrs Edna Everage – a shy housewife back then, rather than the pantomime dame she became. As Dame Edna Everage in 2001 This prim and proper Edna was far too subtle for that trendy London audience, and Humphries died a dreadful death. However Cook didn’t mind at all. “They’ll get it one day,” he told Humphries. He cast Humphries in Bedazzled, his comic remake of Faust (Humphries performed a scene-stealing cameo) and commissioned him to write The Adventures of Barry McKenzie for Private Eye. This Rabelaisian comic strip (about a boorish Australian in Swinging London) spawned two movies, but it was Edna who made him a star. It took a while, but it turned out that Cook’s prediction was quite right. Originally, Humphries invented Edna to embody all the things he disliked about suburban Australia, so he was surprised to find that audiences adored her: “I found myself saddled with a character that people warmed to.

The more unpleasant Edna was to members of the audience, the more they seemed to laugh, and embrace her!” Gradually, she acquired a life of her own, so much so that she now feels like an entirely separate person. Edna still hogs the limelight, but she’s just one of an ensemble cast of Humphries characters, alongside louche Australian ambassador Sir Les Patterson and Australia’s most boring man, Sandy Stone. Now in his early eighties, Humphries’ live shows are becoming rarer, which is why this show is such a special treat. It’s a unique opportunity to see him up close and personal, without make-up or pantyhose, paying homage to an art form he’s loved throughout his life. Barry Humphries’ Weimar Cabaret is at the Cadogan Hall , London on 29 & 30 July and 2 & 3 August, and the Usher Hall , Edinburgh on 8 & 9 August.

Barry Humphries at the EIF Dame Edna Everage creator Barry Humphries reinvented both comedy and TV chat shows | Daily Mail Online comments Chat show king Michael Parkinson summed her up best: ‘A megastar of showbusiness, a confidante of monarchs and captains of industry, she’s the intimate of politicians and decision-makers, she’s the babe from the bush who became the international dowager of style.’ Hard to believe, then, that Dame Edna Everage was conceived as the most boring suburban housewife possible, or that she’s stepping out of the spotlight for ever.

Barry Humphries, the 78-year-old from Melbourne, Australia, who has played the much-loved character Dame Edna since 1955, announced over the weekend that he was ‘beginning to feel a bit senior’, and that he didn’t want to people to say: ‘You should have seen him when he was funny.’ Florid mark: Barry Humphries has played the much-loved character Dame Edna since 1955 - creating a comic institution So he’s decided to put the Dame and her spectacular frocks into mothballs, along with another of his acclaimed characters, the drunken, boorish cultural attache (and celebrity chef) Sir Les Patterson. RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share The announcement means the end of a comic institution who left a florid mark on television with her catchphrase ‘Hello possums!’ and her trademark gladioli flowers. Her ITV talk show, The Dame Edna Experience, ran for just 14 episodes at the end of the Eighties, but it redefined chat programmes. Before her arrival on television, A-list celebrities were treated with deference.

Hosts such as Parkinson, Michael Aspel and Terry Wogan played the straight man, feeding guests respectful questions that elicited thoughtful or witty responses. Hats off to you: Dame Edna's creator Barry Humphries, seen here after being made a CBE for services to entertainment, said he was 'beginning to feel a little bit senior' and wants to move on to do other things Edna was not respectful. She was rude, mocking, brash, condescending, sneering and snobbish. Any celebrity who expected light banter and a plug for the latest book or film was in for a shock. Everyone got a misspelled name-badge, ‘in case your name slips my memory’. Diva Liza Minnelli was ‘Liz’, the late Mastermind host Magnus Magnusson was ‘Maggie’. After that, viewers couldn’t take chat shows seriously again. Edna had created the prototype for today’s irreverent send-ups, presided over by the likes of Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton. But she wasn’t always a ‘gigastar’, as she now describes herself with wry smugness.

In her original incarnation, she was a dowdy frump in a moth-eaten fur jacket, a frayed cardie over a cotton dress, a tatty scarf and lank hair. Dame Edna’s idea of glamour was a kitchen apron decorated with drawings of Tasmania’s venomous spiders. Talk show queen: Dame Edna, pictured interviewing John Mills and Cynthia Payne on the Dame Edna Experience series in 1987, redefined chat shows Bond-ing with the stars: Dame Edna, with 007 legend Sean Connery in 1987, created the prototype for irreverent send-ups She made her first appearance in comedy clubs, as a satire on a certain class of Aussie woman — houseproud, stuck-up, without any knowledge of art or any desire to learn. Women who, Humphries thought, were rather like his own mother, Louisa, the daughter of a Manchester immigrant. He later claimed that one of the formative moments of his childhood, when he realised his parents would never understand his love of painting and reading, came when Louisa gave all his books away to the Salvation Army, ‘because you’ve read them all’.

Humphries was just 21, a university dropout and aspiring artist when he created Edna. She started out as Mrs Norm Everage, average and normal; her father had been ‘a vacuum salesman who once surprised my mother with a crevice nozzle’. She quickly became a TV star in Australia. Audiences loved her mundane chatter about the Moonee Ponds suburb where she lived with her ailing husband, Norm, and the gruesome apparatus for treating his prostate problem. Also sharing the household were her bridesmaid, Madge Allsop, and her children, Kenny, Bruce and Valmai. And yet when Humphries first performed the act in England, it was not a success. Fast and fabulous! Dame Edna hops into a Formula 1 car alongside broadcaster Clive James (left) and racing driver Damon Hill at the 1993 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide Animal magnetism: The Dame cuddles a koala with the late 'crocodile hunter' Steve Irwin in 2003 Happily, however, he met the comedian Peter Cook, barely out of university but already a major star with his revues, TV shows and Soho club.

The pair became friends, and in 1964 Cook booked him at his Establishment Club. The satire venue, which would later introduce Lenny Bruce to British audiences, as well as relaunching Frankie Howerd’s career, should have been the perfect place for the debut. Edna ‘minced on to the stage in her awful slingbacks and floral polyester frock’, remembered Humphries. ‘There was an uproar at her first banal utterance, and it grew from there.’ Edna would later specialise in uproars, of course, but this was the wrong sort — the audience couldn’t grasp the suburban send-up, and were vocal in their disapproval. In his Spectator theatre column, critic Bamber Gascoigne condemned the act as ‘soporific’ — or ‘syphilitic’, as Dame Edna would sometimes recall it. Richard Ingrams, then editor of Private Eye, recalls seeing Edna’s early British shows. ‘She was completely different in those days, just a shabbily dressed housewife with a big handbag.

When she developed into this Dame, it was an extraordinary transformation, like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.’ The change came in the mid-Seventies, when Humphries realised that the world wanted Edna to be fab, not drab. A right royal hello: Dame Edna greets The Queen when she was among the stars appearing at a Gala Variety Performance in aid of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Appeal in 1977 Waxing lyrical: Dame Edna poses with a replica of Queen Victoria as she visits Madame Tussauds in London in 1982 The cheap dresses were ditched for lurid designer creations with frills, paired with extravagant butterfly spectacles, and her purple hair was sprayed solid into whirls and billows, like a luminous meringue perched on her head.

Humphries described how she evolved: ‘The change in her personality from a painfully reticent young housewife, barely able to conduct a conversation, to a terrifying monster looming over her theatre audiences like a vulture disguised as a bird of paradise, is a transformation I could never in my most extravagant dreams have imagined.’ By the end of the decade, she was starring in a BBC mockumentary, La Dame Aux Gladiolas. ‘I’ve decided to put my family last,’ she announced. ‘It’ll be best for them in the end.’ But her big breakthrough came in 1980, and An Audience With . . . Asking the questions, and taking the brunt of Edna’s satire, were celebrities including actress Joanna Lumley, broadcaster Melvyn Bragg and the campaigning Labour peer Lord Longford. Longford demanded to know if she wished to see a tougher stance on pornography, and Edna vigorously agreed — porn must be much tougher, she insisted, for she herself had a thing about muscle men. From then on, she was unstoppable. She simply could not be too outrageous. Every chat show clamoured to have her.

Dame Edna, pictured here bringing her own unique style to Dick Whittington at the New Wimbledon Theatre last Christmas, was transformed from 'drab to fab' after her original dowdy housewife character failed to inspire British audiences Her solo stage shows, with titles such as An Evening Of Intercourse and Back With A Vengeance, broke box office records. And there were unmissable televisions shows — A Night On Dame Edna, Dame Edna Kisses It Better and even a season with the U.S. comedy drama, Ally McBeal. In an era when no other TV host would dare venture as far, Dame Edna was talking about her husband’s failing prostate gland and her son’s homosexual friends: ‘My son Kenny and his partner, Clifford — they are people and, who knows, they may get well.’ She talked candidly about all her family. Daughter-in-law Joylene ‘lives in Clapham. She thinks it’s fashionable. It’s a pity for her really. She does try, she makes a pitiful effort to please me. ‘A lot of people think she’s quite attractive.

I just can’t see it, that’s all.’ But her most pungent remarks were reserved for husband Norm. When he died in 1988, she didn’t pretend to grieve. ‘I’ve never been happier since my husband died, and I think most women in my position would say that, if they were honest. But I am in mourning — I’m wearing black underwear under all this.’ Taking centre stage: Barry Humphries' alter ego with courtroom TV star Judge Judy in New York, where she was also hugely popular for her theatre work Ordinary people in the audience were dubbed ‘paups’ or paupers. But she was equally scathing about the world leaders who, she claimed, relied on her homespun advice. When she met the Queen backstage at a Royal Variety performance in 2003, she claimed the monarch said nothing but simply pressed a scrap of paper into her hand, with a single word written on it: ‘Help!’ And when she took a call from U.S. President Ronald Reagan on her show in 1988, she spent the conversation explaining to him who he was, and why it was important that he should remember it. Humphries never thought of himself as a drag artist.

He simply played comic personalities, and the favourite happened to be female. Once he was in character, he refused to admit Edna was really a man, and always referred in the third person to Barry Humphries as Edna’s agent or manager. This mental double-act reached its zenith when he wrote her biography, Handling Edna, published as non-fiction, in 2010. But the man beneath the cyclamen lipstick has a reputation for kindness and a gentle nature. ‘A truly kind man,’ insists Ingrams. ‘I’ve often thought that Barry enjoyed being on the stage because he got real pleasure from making people laugh. Even though he was making fun of them, he really loved working an audience, just deriving pleasure from the sound of their laughter.’ Edna’s own assessment, of course, is typically modest: ‘Am I old-fashioned? I think I might be. I am a lucky woman, because I was born with a priceless gift . . .

the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.’ Comedy legend: Mr Humphries with Little Britain stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams in 2005 Lecher: Mr Humphries in his other guise as the farting, obnoxious Sir Les Patterson 1000+ images about Dame Edna on Pinterest | Barry humphries, Icons and Watches Australian comedian Barry Humphries, backstage as his alter ego, Dame Edna, Everage - UK - 12 March 1969 08bcf3a09f795b9094dcdeddd1bfb2bd Dame Edna Everage hangs up her glasses and retires after 6 decades | Daily Mail Online comments Prepare to catch the ‘gladdies’ one last time. Age has finally caught up with Dame Edna Everage – and she is retiring. Barry Humphries, the man behind the glittery glasses, has announced that his character is setting out on her final tour. And the Australian housewife won’t be alone in her retirement as Humphries’s other alter ego, the obnoxious Sir Les Patterson, will be joining her.

Dame Edna, pictured here bringing her own unique style to Dick Whittington at the New Wimbledon Theatre last Christmas, was transformed from 'drab to fab' after her original dowdy housewife character failed to inspire British audiences Hats off to you: Dame Edna's creator Barry Humphries, seen here after being made a CBE for services to entertainment, said he was 'beginning to feel a little bit senior' and wants to move on to do other things ‘I’m feeling a bit senior now and it’s time to move on,’ Humphries, who is 78, said yesterday. The comedian’s upcoming tour will be the last time Dame Edna and Sir Les will be seen on stage, although their creator admitted: ‘Edna will crop up on television, I guess, but not in a live show.’ He said: ‘The fact of the matter is that I’m beginning to feel a bit senior. It’s the best aerobics you could do, leaping around on stage, but it’s gruelling when there are other things to do.’ RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Dame Edna was created in the 1950s when Humphries was a young actor touring southern Australia.

Sir Les Patterson burst on to the scene later, cursing and spitting his way through his first stage show in 1974. He was a dramatic contrast to Dame Edna with his nose-picking, belching and flatulence, but was an immediate hit with her fans. Fast and fabulous! Dame Edna hops into a Formula 1 car alongside broadcaster Clive James (left) and racing driver Damon Hill at the 1993 Australian Grand Prix in Adelaide Animal magnetism: The Dame cuddles a koala with the late 'crocodile hunter' Steve Irwin in 2003 Taking centre stage: Barry Humphries' alter ego with courtroom TV star Judge Judy in New York, where she was also hugely popular for her theatre work Talk show queen: Dame Edna, pictured interviewing John Mills and Cynthia Payne on the Dame Edna Experience series in 1987, redefined chat shows By the 1980s, Dame Edna had evolved from a drab housewife from Melbourne’s working class suburb of Moonee Ponds to an international star who hosted her own talk show.

Celebrities including Sean Connery, Chubby Checker, Charlton Heston, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mel Gibson and Dusty Springfield appeared on The Dame Edna Experience. She became known for her glasses, her lilac curls, her ‘Hello possums!’ greeting and her ‘gladdies’ – the bunch of gladioli that she threw to the audience at the end of her live shows. Humphries’s characters have been such a hit in Britain that he was made a CBE in 2007 for services to entertainment. In the U.S., he won the Tony award for best special theatrical event in 2000 for Dame Edna: The Royal Tour. Bond-ing with the stars: Dame Edna, with 007 legend Sean Connery in 1987, created the prototype for irreverent send-ups Comedy legend: Mr Humphries with Little Britain stars Matt Lucas and David Walliams in 2005 Lecher: Mr Humphries in his other guise as the farting, obnoxious Sir Les Patterson But Humphries told Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph he was retiring the popular couple because there were ‘places I want to go, things I want to do’.

He has also been given a contract to write another book. And although Dame Edna’s upcoming farewell tour only covers Australia at the moment, British fans may also get the chance to say their goodbyes. Humphries said that if the show is a success in Australia, he will take it to London and New York. Entitled Eat Pray Laugh, the show is about a journey, he added. Providing a few clues as to what audiences can expect, he said: ‘Les has become a celebrity chef. We’ll have a kitchen on stage and Les working away, clearly preparing a meal for political colleagues. ‘Edna, of course, will be discussing her spiritual journey. She’s on a journey to find herself, to lose the trappings of mega-stardom and become a real person.’ There will also be an appearance from Humphries’s favourite character, Sandy Stone.

A right royal hello: Dame Edna greets The Queen when she was among the stars appearing at a Gala Variety Performance in aid of the Queen's Silver Jubilee Appeal in 1977 Waxing lyrical: Dame Edna poses with a replica of Queen Victoria as she visits Madame Tussauds in London in 1982 Caitlyn Jenner Is A Ratbag And Sex Change Surgery Is Mutilation, Claims Barry Humphries Caitlyn Jenner Is A Ratbag And Sex Change Surgery Is Mutilation, Claims Barry Humphries Share Australian comedian Barry Humphries has called transgender reality TV star Caitlyn Jenner a “publicity-seeking ratbag”. In controversial comments made during an interview with The Telegraph , Humphries - most famous for his comedy creation Dame Edna Everage - described Jenner as “a mutilated man” and claimed that transgender women are not female. Jenner, formerly known as Bruce, publicly announced her name change to Caitlyn last summer after revealing her identity as a trans woman. Humphries, 81, was asked in the interview for his opinion on feminist - and fellow Australian - Germaine Greer’s comments on the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star.

Greer said last October that women such as Jenner are men “who believe they are women and have themselves castrated”. Humphries told The Telegraph : “I agree with Germaine! You’re a mutilated man, that’s all.” He added: “Self-mutilation, what’s all this carry on? Caitlyn Jenner — what a publicity-seeking ratbag. “It’s all given the stamp — not of respectability, but authenticity or something. If you criticise anything you’re racist or sexist or homophobic.” The drag artist comedian is preparing for Dame Edna’s final farewell tour in the US and Canada. What do you think of Barry Humphries’s comments about Caitlyn Jenner?

Tweet your views @YahooStyleUK Dame Edna Everage : definition of Dame Edna Everage and synonyms of Dame Edna Everage (English) Religion Protestant Dame Edna is a character created and played by Australian dadaist performer and comedian, Barry Humphries , famous for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture," her favourite flower, the gladiola ("gladdies") and her boisterous greeting: "Hello Possums!" As Dame Edna, Humphries has written several books including an autobiography, My Gorgeous Life, appeared in several films and hosted several television shows (on which Humphries has also appeared as himself and other alter-egos). Humphries has regularly updated Edna, originally a drab Melbourne housewife satirising Australian suburbia. The character adopted an increasingly outlandish wardrobe after being performed in London in the 1960s, and grew in stature and popularity. Following film appearances and an elevation to damehood in the 1970s, the character evolved to "Housewife and Superstar", then "Megastar" and finally "Gigastar".

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s Dame Edna became increasingly known and popular in the U.S. after multiple stage and television appearances. Edna describes her chat-shows as "an intimate conversation between two friends, one of whom is a lot more interesting than the other" (by which she means herself). The character has been used to satirise the cult of celebrity , class snobbery , and prudishness and is often used by Humphries to poke fun at the political leaders and fashions of the times. Her larger-than-life persona and scathing but dead-on commentary on society and celebrity, as well as her habit of treating celebrities like ordinary people (on her TV shows) and ordinary people like celebrities (in her stage shows) have become signatures. [1] Although Humphries freely states that Edna is a character he plays, Edna refers to Humphries as her "entrepreneur" or manager. Humphries and his staff of assistants and writers only refer to Edna as "she," and "her," never mixing the character with Humphries himself. It is this precision and richness of identity which gives Dame Edna her unique force as a character.

[2] In March 2012, Humphries announced that the character would be retired at the end of the current stage tour. [3] Contents 11 External links Character Story While Dame Edna is a fictitious character whose life story has been entirely created by Barry Humphries, so complete is her identity as an individual that Macmillan published My Gorgeous Life, Edna's "autobiography" (written by Humphries but credited to Edna herself) on its non-fiction list. [4] Humphries has also written an "Unauthorised Biography" of his life as Edna's manager: Handling Edna, published in 2010. According to My Gorgeous Life, and statements Edna has made over the years, she was born Edna May Beazley in the city of Wagga Wagga , with a sibling who would give birth to Barry McKenzie . Everage started her stage career on 19 December 1955 as Mrs. Norm Everage, an "average Australian housewife" from Moonee Ponds , a Melbourne suburb. She spends her time visiting world leaders and jet-setting between her homes in Los Angeles, London, Sydney, Switzerland and Martha's Vineyard .

She is a friend and confidante of the Queen , and has advised prime ministers and presidents. Edna once took an on-air phone call from President Ronald Reagan to assure him that he was, indeed, still the president and at recent stageshows the character has claimed to be giving Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard , elocution lessons. The character has three adult children, Bruce, Kenny, and Valmai. Her first daughter, Lois, when still an infant, went missing and was believed to have been abducted by a "rogue koala" during a family camp-out in the outback, à la Azaria Chamberlain . In Handling Edna, the Unauthorised Biography, Humphries absolves the koala of any role in the affair and reveals the true fate of Lois, who in fact survived abduction to become a Catholic nun. Edna's surviving daughter, Valmai, has assisted Dame Edna on her recent programme for ITV1 , including The Dame Edna Treatment and has assisted on her live tour shows. Edna takes great pride in her two sons: Bruce, who is married to Joylene, and her youngest, Kenneth (or Kenny), who designs all of her frocks.

Dame Edna refers often to him and his partner, Clifford Smale, both of whom Edna believes are searching for "Miss Right," although she admits they are looking "in some very strange places". Kenny appeared in Sir Les Patterson 's documentary Les Patterson and the Great Chinese Takeaway as a boutique owner in Hong Kong. Dame Edna's mother is incarcerated in a "maximum-security twilight home for the bewildered". Valmai and Kenny are the only family members (so far) who have appeared on stage or screen with their mother. Her husband, Sir Norman Everage, died in 1988 after many years in hospital suffering from prostate problems and a "testicular murmur"; Edna founded the non-profit "Friends of the Prostate" in his honour. Dame Edna was not with Norm when he died and due to his insistence that all his organs be donated, by the time she reached his bedside Norm had been "globally recycled" and all that remained was "a dent in the pillow". As a result, Dame Edna almost believed that Norm's cremation was a "waste of money".

In recent years, Edna has demonstrated her social conscience and sensitivity, telling audiences of her intention to adopt an African child from "that country where Madonna does her shopping" for loved ones. [5] Dame Edna spent many years accompanied by her bridesmaid and constant companion Madge Allsop (played by Emily Perry ), a New Zealander from Palmerston North who assisted Dame Edna with her appearances and television shows. (Perry died at the age of 100 in 2008 and now Dame Edna's daughter Valmai has replaced her on stage). Madge never spoke a public word (although she sang on Comic Relief ), and while she was often the butt of Dame Edna's jokes, the two were devoted. [6] In Handling Edna, the Unauthorised Biography, Humphries gives Madge a voice and explains the sad loss of her own husband in New Zealand's boiling mud, whilst the couple were on their honeymoon. Dame Edna is praised for her insights into her homeland.

When asked why Australians are so good at sport she commented "Good food and diet; open air life; juicy steaks; sunshine — and the total absence of any kind of intellectual distraction." Dame Edna launched a campaign to be appointed as a BBC newscaster in 2009 after the corporation announced it wished to seek a female newsreader over 50 years old. [7] Honours Dame Edna Place at night, marked by lit signs on each wall. On 7 March 2007 her home town, Melbourne, renamed a city street in her honour: Dame Edna Place, [8] formerly Brown Alley off Little Collins Street, was officially opened by the Lord Mayor of Melbourne, John So . Dame Edna Place is opposite Royal Arcade and The Causeway, between the major roads, Elizabeth Street and Swanston Street; it was, until its renaming, a service alley for adjoining buildings. Dame Edna was not at the renaming ceremony but was represented by ten look-alike Dames. Everage Street in suburban Moonee Ponds has also been named in her honour.

In 1982, Dame Edna's alter-ego Barry Humphries was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for "services to the theatre" [9] and on 16 June 2007 he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to entertainment. [10] In MAC Cosmetics 2008 Winter Line-Up, a Dame Edna collection of cosmetics were released including eye shadow, lipstick, powder, and nail polish. A bronze statue was unveiled at Melbourne Docklands in January 2009. [11] Invention of the character Barry Humphries was invited to join the fledgling Union Theatre Repertory Company early in 1955 and toured Victorian country towns performing Twelfth Night , directed by Ray Lawler . On tour, Humphries invented Edna gradually as part of the entertainment for the actors during commutes between country towns. Humphries gradually developed a falsetto impersonation of a Melbourne housewife, imitating the Country Women's Association representatives who welcomed the troup in each town.

At Lawler's suggestion, Mrs Everage (later named Edna after Humphries' nanny) made her first appearance in a Melbourne University 's UTRC revue at the end of 1955, as the city prepared for the 1956 Olympic Games . The sketch involved a houseproud "average housewife" offering her Moonee Ponds home as an Olympic billet, spruiking her home as possessing "burgundy wall-to-wall carpets, lamington cakes and reindeers frosted on glass dining-room doors". [12] At this time the character was billed as "Mrs Norm Everage" (Humphries describing this name as "Everage as in 'average', husband Norm as in 'normal'") [13] and had none of the characteristic flamboyant wardrobe of later years. According to one author, Edna came into her own during the 1980s when the policies of Thatcherism -- and what he described as the "vindictive style of the times"-- allowed Dame Edna to sharpen her observations accordingly.

[14] Lahr wrote that Edna took Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's "seemingly hypocritical motto" of "caring and compassion" for others and turned it on its head, Edna became the voice of Humphries' outrage. [14] [ dubious – discuss ][ vague ] Stage and screen performances 1950s–1999 Humphries played the character at comedy clubs, satirising the atmosphere of 1950s Melbourne suburbia. An interview with "Mrs Everage" was one of the programmes screened on HSV-7 's first day of programming in 1956. Another revue called Rock'n'Reel followed in 1958 at the New Theatre in Melbourne. The character's overseas debut, now as Edna Everage, was in the early 1960s at comedian Peter Cook 's nightclub, The Establishment , in London's West End, where she received a poor review from Bamber Gascoigne , then the drama critic for The Spectator . Barry Humphries cites Peter Cook as being instrumental in launching Edna's UK career.

In 1972, the character appeared as Barry McKenzie 's "Aunt Edna" in the film, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie . In the sequel Barry McKenzie Holds His Own , the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam cameos at the close of the film to confer upon Edna the title of Dame , henceforth to be known as "Dame Edna". Following the lukewarm reception to Edna's early appearances in Humphries' 1969 stageshow "Just a Show" and the BBC television series "The Barry Humphries Scandals", [15] a growing awareness and appreciation among British audiences for Edna emerged and Humphries devised a stage show titled Edna Everage Housewife Superstar which was successfully presented in London's West End in the mid 1970s. The show featured monologues, songs and what was becoming an Edna trademark – interaction with the theatre audience. In April 1976, Edna made an appearance in A Poke in the Eye (with a Sharp Stick) – the first of what became Amnesty International 's Secret Policeman's Ball series of benefit shows.

Edna performed a song for the show and was featured in the film of the show. She also appeared in the 1981 Amnesty show The Secret Policeman's Other Ball . Edna made a cameo appearance in the 1978 film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band . In 1979 she was the subject of a BBC Arena mockumentary : La Dame aux Gladiolas. Humphries debuted the character off-Broadway in New York in the late 1970s, but the show received such a poor review from the New York Times that Humphries later joked that he thought "Well, I'll go back to Broadway but I'll wait till the critic's dead – and I had to wait 25 years. I had to wait a quarter of a century for that critic to die." [16] Edna's success grew in the UK throughout the 1980s and early 1990s however with semi-regular television shows. Her first specials were in 1978/1979 on the BBC. Although she became popular with broadcaster ITV after her performance on An Audience With Dame Edna in 1980.

She would go on to perform two more " An Audience With... " specials (in 1984 and 1988). In 1987, Edna starred alongside Humphries's vulgar alter-ego Les Patterson in the comedy feature Les Patterson Saves the World . In the same year The Dame Edna Experience , ostensibly a talk show which she described as "really a monologue interrupted by total strangers" aired, featuring high-profile "celebrity guests" such as Sean Connery , Mel Gibson , Joan Rivers , and Germaine Greer (an old friend of Humphries'), as well as Madge, her silent, sour-faced "bridesmaid and travelling companion." In 1989, the show was back for a second season, this time taking place in her "luxury penthouse suite" where her guests stayed and, in the case of Douglas Fairbanks, Jr , did her grocery shopping. Subsequently these shows were aired in the U.S. on PBS, broadening her audience and enlarging her fame.

Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch a reality/game show hybrid, aired in 1992, and saw her and Madge having a look at her "by invitation only, ladies audience" member's houses, and evaluating their housekeeping skills. U.S. television specials followed, as did an unsuccessful series which aired only one episode. She appeared as a guest of Phil Donahue on his talk show on 17 February 1993. In 1997, she appeared in another television talk show Dr Dame Edna Kisses It Better. Edna continued her Australian stage and television appearances including a record five appearances as guest presenter at the TV Week Logie Awards [17] and a notable role as a co-narrator (along with Humphries and Les Patterson) of the ABC 's Australian social history series: Barry Humphries Flashbacks in 1999. 2000–2009 In 2000 and 2004, Dame Edna appeared on Broadway, and toured America with both shows. These were ostensibly not "performances", but rather "appearances", with Dame Edna giving monologues and interacting with audience members.

Her 2000 show, The Royal Tour, won the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding One-Person Show , and a Tony Award . During 2001 and 2002, Dame Edna appeared in the fifth season of the television show Ally McBeal playing the guest role of Claire Otoms, a client of the show's law firm who later became a secretary at the same firm. The character shared Dame Edna's voice and style and was explicitly listed in the opening credits as being played by Dame Edna Everage (although Barry Humphries received a credit in the closing credits). Claire Otoms is an anagram of "A Sitcom Role". In the 2002 motion picture Nicholas Nickleby Dame Edna plays the role of Mrs. Crummles, an actress and wife of the manager of a provincial theatre company. Barry Humphries also appears in the film as Mr. Leadville. Dame Edna appeared at the Queen's Golden Jubilee Concert, the " Party at the Palace " in London in 2002, where she referred to the Queen as the "jubilee girl".

The nostalgic "Barry Humphries Back to my Roots" tour featured, Humphries, Edna, Sir Les and Sandy Stone around Australia in 2003. [18] In 2003, she had an interview punctuated with NPR Weekend Edition's host Scott Simon's table-pounding laughter. [19] Dame Edna featured on a billboard at the Myer department store in Melbourne The character celebrated her 50th "birthday" in 2005. To mark the occasion, in 2006, Australia Post featured Edna on a stamp [20] and the Lord Mayor of Melbourne presented Edna with the key to the city. [21] She toured Australia with the stageshow "Barry Humphries Back With a Vengeance" and appeared on camera "together" with Humphries for the first time in an interview by Ray Martin for Australia's 60 Minutes .

[22] She also appeared on screen at the Closing Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games 2006 in Melbourne while 1000 "Commonwealth Dames" danced around the arena, in purple wigs, garish costumes and gladioli, singing along to her song, "We've Made The Most Of Melbourne" : "It's not as small as Adelaide, Compared to Canberra, it's bliss, And if you've been to Melbourne, You can give Sydney a miss." [23] On 20 May 2006 she appeared on ITV's coverage of The Prince's Trust annual fundraiser. She took part in a Blind Date themed skit, picking Chico Slimani over Roger Moore and Richard E Grant . In the summer of 2006, Dame Edna appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno alongside Billy Crystal . On 23 September 2006, during an interview on Parkinson , she revealed that she would be returning to ITV in 2007 with a new chat show, The Dame Edna Treatment .

The show began on Saturday 17 March 2007, with the set-up being that Edna runs a health spa where various famous guests come for treatment. On Wednesday 17 December 2006, Dame Edna appeared as a guest panellist on the ABC TV Show Spicks and Specks where she sang with presenter Adam Hills . On 16 December 2007 she appeared as the final guest on the final episode of the Parkinson UK talk show. On 29 May 2008 she appeared on The Graham Norton Show alongside Ray Mears and Alanis Morissette . On 8 August 2008 she appeared on Loose Women on their final show of the series. On 12 September 2008, Monday 15 December 2008, and Wednesday 27 May 2009, she appeared as a guest on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno . Accompanied by her daughter Valmai in America and Sir Les Patterson in the UK, Dame Edna again toured with what was declared My First Last Tour.

On television in early 2009, she appeared in adverts to publicise the insurance company Norwich Union 's change of name to Aviva , quoting her change of name from Mrs Everage. On 9 June 2009, she appeared as a guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. On 17 July 2009, she appeared as a guest on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross . On an episode of The One Show in September 2009 a piece of graffiti on Sunderland 's Penshaw Monument read "Edna Woz Ere 09" and a pair of Everage's signature glasses were drawn next to it. Edna performed the "Last Night of the Poms" at the Royal Albert Hall accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra on 15 September and on 21 September 2009 she appeared on the C4, Paul O'Grady Show, where she complained of a burst appendix in Australia, but said of course she was happy to be back in the UK.

2010–present Bronze statue of Dame Edna at Waterfront City, Docklands, Melbourne In early 2010, Dame Edna collaborated with cabaret pianist and singer, Michael Feinstein for a two-person revue entitled "All About Me", based on the concept that the pair were rivals who were forced to work together for the show's sake. The show opened as the second production for the newly refurbished Henry Miller's Theatre and was planned to run from 18 March through 18 July 2010 (with previews beginning on 22 February). However, lukewarm reviews and low ticket sales led to the limited engagement being cut short and closing on 4 April 2010, after 27 previews and 20 regular performances. [24] On 25 March 2010, she appeared on the television talk show The View as a guest host to promote the production.

[25] On 29 April 2011, she appeared on the BBC broadcast "William and Kate: The Royal Wedding," with Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson , covering the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton at Buckingham Palace , along with Tracey Grimshaw and Kathy Lette at Westminster Abbey . On 18 March 2012, Humphries announced he would "retire" the Dame Edna character because he was "beginning to feel a bit senior". [3] Discography The Dame Edna Party Experience (Epic Records, 1988) [26] Bad / When Will I Be Famous / Layla (Alias Edna) / I Should Be So Lucky / The Locomotion / Bad 'Nice' (Reprise) Waltzing Matilda (Instrumental Intro) / The Twist Venus / Like A Virgin / Girls Just Want To Have Fun / Venus (Reprise) Shout (Part 1) Shout (Part II) I Got You Babe (Who Needs You Babe) [with Sir Les Patterson] I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) / Stop!

In The Name Of Love / Dancing In The Street / I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me) (Reprise) Neighbours Leader Of The Pack / It's My Party Theme From Neighbours (Epic Records, 1988) [Produced by David Mackay ] Theme From Neighbours (Caring And Sharing Mix) / Spooky Christmas Shout (Parts One And Two) In 1997 Naxos released a CD in the Children's Classics series, catalogue number 8.554170. [27] S. Prokofiev: "Peter and the Wolf", Op. 67, narrated by Dame Edna Everage F. Poulenc: "The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant", narrated by Barry Humphries B. Britten: "The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra", Op. 34, narrated by Dame Edna Everage Controversy In 2003 Vanity Fair magazine invited Dame Edna to write a satirical advice column. She created a storm of controversy with a piece published in the February 2003 issue.

Replying to a reader who asked if she should learn Spanish, she wrote: "Forget Spanish. There's nothing in that language worth reading except Don Quixote , and a quick listen to the CD of Man of La Mancha will take care of that ... Who speaks it that you are really desperate to talk to? The help? Your leaf blower?" Some members of the Hispanic community read this reply as a racist remark and complaints flooded in to the magazine. Actress Salma Hayek responded angrily, penning a furious letter in which she denounced Dame Edna. After Vanity Fair received death threats, the magazine published a full-page apology to the Hispanic community. Humphries commented later: "If you have to explain satire to someone, you might as well give up." When Dame Edna was questioned about the controversy on the eve of her 2003 Australian tour, she retorted that Hayek's denunciation was due to "professional jealousy", and that Hayek was envious because the role of painter Frida Kahlo (for which Hayek received an Oscar nomination) had originally been offered to Edna: When I was offered the part of Frida I turned it down, and she was the second choice.

I said 'I'm not playing the role of a woman with a moustache and a monobrow, and I'm not having same-sex relations on the screen' ... I'm not racist. I love all races, particularly white people. You know, I even like Roman Catholics. References in other media Dame Edna has been mentioned on The Simpsons : in " The Regina Monologues ", " Homer's Barbershop Quartet ", and " HOMR ." She was also mentioned in a song, "This One's Just For You", by Australian songwriter and comedian, Kevin Bloody Wilson and impersonated by Simon Amstell on Good Morning with Anne and Nick . In an episode of The Goodies , Bill remarks upon Tim's unwise choice of love interest with "Tell you something, I'd rather have Edna Everage. At least she's a real woman!". TV credits

Question: Known throughout the world as 'Dame Edna Everage' What was the comics real name?
Answer: Barry Humphries