‘Waves of affection lap around him’: BARRY HUMPHRIES: THE MAN BEHIND THE MASK – Touring

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Touring – reviewed at Richmond Theatre, London

Full disclosure: I have been following this man around for the best part of 50 years. Went with my brother Mike to his first show, Housewife Superstar, at the Apollo in the 70s, drawn as fans of his Private Eye cartoon strip. Stalls tickets severely denting a first job wage, we stood with the gladioli Edna Everage had hurled, to obey the final command “Tremble your gladdies!”

We have been to every London show since, including the Last Night of the Poms at the Albert Hall where we lustily sang her anthem ‘Why do we love Australia?’ Trembled in fear many times as Edna strafed the front stalls with audience-participation moments. Saw the Palladium “farewell”, all of nine years ago and the non-Edna show about Weimar music. Oh, and there was an unforgettable 2011 panto debut in which Edna flew across the auditorium on a giant possum.

So here I am at Barry Humphries’ feet again. He is 88, five shows in to a 27-date tour: this time he is presented as himself, the trickiest character of all. Grandfatherly in a velvet jacket, he is joined only by Ben Dawson at the piano to play some  nostalgic snatches to move the mood on (though the pianist, clearly the New Madge, is seen in a pinny hoovering and dusting the stage as we settle down. Just one of those Barry gags).

He is here to tell us his life story, or tantalising bits of it. Old photographs in a gilt frame above him pepper the first half: childhood in genteel Melbourne, misdemeanours, first moments on stage, a shy Orsino embarrassed by his tights,  a  Coward hero disastrously drying mid scene. Glimpses of his mother as “mistress of the vocabulary of discouragement”, and the multiple aunts and lady mayoresses on smalltown tours who all, somehow, collectively became Edna. He speaks of misjudged performances, arcane acting tips picked up and the comedian’s rule: as with a skidding car, when disastrous embarrassment or offence looms because you misread someone, just “steer straight into it!” Making it worse might make it better. Less brave comics might learn from that.

Unease at Australian success made him “need obscurity and total neglect”. Finding it in London he got work, as actor and cartoonist, but also in the 1960s hit the bottle and spent time in a secure “hospital for thirsty people”.

Waves of affection lap around him, the laughs skilfully provoked during apparently meandering departures or brief conversations with the front row. And they are good laughs, professional: because as he remarks in one of the few bitchy comments, nowadays comedians “don’t have to be funny. You  just have to identify as funny”. Ouch.

The second half explodes into some video of Edna in her pride, leading a singalong in the RAH and in a series of interview and talk-show moments over decades. These include, with a historical frisson, a young Trump and a mid-career Boris Johnson talking rubbish about reclaiming Aquitaine and Burgundy, and being patronised as someone unable to learn from his own mistakes. Ouch again.

A passage of Edna condemning the “sick” habit of “female impersonation” by Barry strikes a refreshingly  gender-critical note.  We see him with Charles and Camilla and  Elton and have  commentary on it all from the man himself. There is a  modest,oddly decent acknowledgement  former alcoholism and the weight of it on others, and of being too grandiose to go to AA at first “because it was free”.

That leads to  a moment that shakes you out of comedy and into something greater:  the realization 53 years ago when he finally “put the cork in the bottle”,  that without it he was happy.    Just happy. And still is.

And looking back on all the years of fandom, I saw that this is why so many of us stuck with him, and will until the terrible day when he has to go.  Through Edna’s divine appallingness and patronising insults, Les Paterson’s vintage disgustingness and  every moment onstage and screen , this was why we wave our gladioli in fealty.  Like another legendary comic,  it is pure   happiness he stands for and spreads. And we rise to our feet for that.

www.manbehindthemask.co.uk. Touring UK, a dozen more dates, including a new one at   the Gielgud Theatre on Sunday June 12

out of lifelong gratitude

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Libby Purves
Libby Purves was theatre critic for The Times from 2010 to 2013. Determined to continue her theatre commentary after losing that job, she set up her own site www.theatrecat.com in October 2013. She personally reviews all major London openings, usually with on-the-night publication, and also gives voice to a new generation of critics with occasional guest 'theatrekittens'. In addition to her theatre writing and myriad other credits, Libby has been a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek for over 30 years. She is also the author of a dozen novels, and numerous non-fiction titles. In 1999, Libby was appointed an OBE for services to journalism.
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Libby Purves on RssLibby Purves on Twitter
Libby Purves
Libby Purves was theatre critic for The Times from 2010 to 2013. Determined to continue her theatre commentary after losing that job, she set up her own site www.theatrecat.com in October 2013. She personally reviews all major London openings, usually with on-the-night publication, and also gives voice to a new generation of critics with occasional guest 'theatrekittens'. In addition to her theatre writing and myriad other credits, Libby has been a presenter on BBC Radio 4’s Midweek for over 30 years. She is also the author of a dozen novels, and numerous non-fiction titles. In 1999, Libby was appointed an OBE for services to journalism.

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