Barry Humphries wrote and published the autobiography of his most famous creation Dame Edna Everage in the late 1980s, calling it My Gorgeous Life. Now Humphries has taken a different tack and instead of writing in Edna’s voice, used his own for an 'unauthorised' biography called Handling Edna. Confused? Imagine what must go on in the author’s head.
It seems unlikely that this sort of feat has been attempted before. Two biographical books written by the creator of a comic character, one taking a subjective stance, the other claiming to be a more objective view.
The Power of Dame Edna Everage
Clearly, Humphries’s dadaist experiments from the 1950s are still very much with him. If anything, it points to the powerful effect Dame Edna Everage must have over its creator. In fact, Dame Edna seems very much a free agent of herself, almost as if she could easily have willed herself into existence without the help of Barry Humphries.
Dame Edna’s Humble Showbiz Beginnings
This ‘unauthorised biography’ starts out with Edna headlining in a suburban passion play. The Moonee Ponds mother of three approaches a young Humphries to manage her. Mrs Everage becomes a huge hit and very soon her career is striding along in leaps and bounds, while that of her somewhat timid manager barely finds a footing. This failure to match Edna’s stratospheric rise to fame prompts Humphries into the ignominy of actually impersonating his client on several occasions, in an effort to bolster his own fortunes.
The Mystery of Dame Edna’s Missing Daughter Lois
A new piece of the Edna puzzle is added with a missing daughter, Lois, who is presumed to have been kidnapped by a koala. It turns out that Madge Allsop, Edna’s New Zealand bridesmaid, had something to do with the missing child. The ‘biography’ ends with a very unusual re-union with Lois, and even weirder response from Dame Edna herself.
Then again, this should come as no surprise to the reader, as one of Dame Edna’s axioms of life is ‘always put your family last’.
Barry Humphries Talks About Himself
While some three quarters of the biography follows the strange rise to showbiz power of Dame Edna, there are several appealing autobiographical sketches by Mr Humphries himself. For those interested in Melbourne during the 1950s, the reminisces of the author, describing fashionable haunts and shopping districts, provide many interesting digressions. In a strange way, parts of Handling Edna read like a third instalment of Humphries’s autobiography, carrying on from his two previous volumes More Please and My Life as Me.
A Frivolous But Fun Read
Ultimately, this book is frivolous summer beach reading, a guilty pleasure for Ednaphiles who answer to her call for more adulation. Humphries’s perfect, lapidary prose is in evidence throughout the text, making the ‘biography’ a charm to read.
Handling Edna also has several bonus features. There is a wealth of photos from the Edna archives, plus an hilarious snap of the dame on the set of the Australian drama Prisoner, photographed with Maggie Kirkpatrick aka Joan “the freak” Ferguson. An appendix offers miscellaneous jottings and ephemera ‘saved from Edna’s shredder’. The 1965 ‘Lexicon of Taste’, with its listing of nice and common words (pillowcase is common while pillowslip is nice) makes for indispensable guidance on matters of taste, and indeed, niceness.
This is a fun, silly book that no serious Dame Edna fan should be without.
Published by Hachette Australia, October 2009.
Chris Saliba - Chris Saliba is a freelance writer. Read more of his workplace articles at chrissalibafreelancewriter.blogspot.com
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