Novelist and comedian KATHY LETTE pays tribute to Dame Edna star Barry Humphries following his death

Australia is home to the world’s most deadly creatures – the great white shark, the funnel-web spider, the box jellyfish… and, until yesterday, the Edna Everage. 

Dame Edna had the most venomous wit. She was the Navratilova of the back-handed compliment, able to elevate then annihilate in the same breath.  

In a conversation with singer Michael Bolton on what would be her last talk show in Britain, she purred: ‘You’ve had nine hits this year…’ Just as the singer was preening himself, she added caustically: ‘On your website.’ 

But, then, as Dame Edna herself often observed, she was ‘born with a priceless gift – the ability to laugh at the misfortune of others’. Equally as lethal was her cultural attaché, Sir Les Patterson, a ball-swinging barbarian who thinks ‘erudite’ is some kind of glue. 

Sir Les aimed many of his damning remarks at the Dame. ‘Let’s hear it for Dame Edna,’ he’d splutter. ‘When she steps on to these boards, I want you to give her the clap she so richly deserves.’

Humphries was a fixture of the local entertainment scene for seven decades and became an international star 

The pair’s manager, Barry Humphries, however, was their antithesis. Warm, wise, candid, kind and deliciously selfdeprecating, Barry was my friend for more than 40 years. 

I first met him in my late teens at the Melbourne comedy awards where I confessed that I felt he may have invented me: Dame Edna has a daughter named Valmai and she married a man called Mervyn and they moved to a blond-brick veneer (a typical 1950s family home) in the suburbs. 

My mother’s name is Valmai and she married my dad Mervyn and they built a blond-brick house in suburbia. Barry laughed, before going into Dame Edna mode: ‘How spooky, possum!’ 

For us, it was love at first slight – and we’ve been tripling entendres ever since. He had a black belt in tongue-fu. A dinner party involving him invariably became the Wimbledon of wit, with banter being lobbed back and forth at such speed guests were left reeling from quip-lash. 

We were neighbours in London for 25 years, so I got to experience his deliciously wicked wit on a regular basis. His house backed on to mine. Returning home after wowing the world, he would email me: ‘Kathy dear, I’m poised at your rear entrance’, or something similarly mischievous. 

The pandemic lockdowns were particularly gruelling for performers, and ADD (Audience Deficit Disorder) hit Barry hard.

Respite came only once a week when we’d emerge, blinking, from various burrows, to clap for carers. Barry would sashay on to his top-floor balcony, applaud the heroic front-line workers, then secretly imagine himself back in the theatre. 

‘I first met him in my late teens at the Melbourne comedy awards where I confessed that I felt he may have invented me’ 

Eyes twinkling, he would bathe in the applause before taking a humble bow. He once told me his favourite part of a hectic day, was to walk out on to stage before 1,000 people, then sighing with relief: ‘Ah, alone at last.’ 

Even though Barry has now left the world stage, he has bequeathed us a legacy of laughter. There could be no greater gift.