Barry Humphries: Piers Morgan slams Melbourne International Comedy Festival
Piers Morgan has blasted the “gutless” organisers of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for their treatment of the legendary Barry Humphries.
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Piers Morgan has blasted the “gutless” organisers of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival for their treatment of the legendary Barry Humphries.
The popular festival announced on Monday night it was exploring ways to give the Melbourne-born comic genius a “fitting tribute”, despite previously cancelling him over comments he made about transgender people.
Humphries founded the festival along with fellow comic legend Peter Cook, but in 2019 organisers stripped his name from the “Barry” award for best show.
This followed a furore over remarks he made claiming that being transgender was a “fashion”.
Humphries also described gender-affirmation surgery as “self-mutilation.”
British commentator Morgan ripped into the Melbourne festival’s organisers for their treatment of the star.
“You gutless cowards cancelled him for standing up for women’s rights. You don’t get to un-cancel now he’s dead,” Morgan tweeted.
Humphries died at the age of 89 on Saturday, which was the final weekend for the festival, but no tribute was made.
But on Monday, the festival tweeted it was working on a tribute to Humphries,
“The news of Barry Humphries’ passing in the last 24 hours of the ’23 Fest was momentous,” the tweet said.
“From today we re-group and start to plan a fitting tribute to his comic genius and leading role in creating a global platform for Australian comedy.”
Entertainer Miriam Margolyes said on Monday that Humphries, her longtime friend, was “very hurt and saddened” after being cancelled by the festival in his final years.
“He’d had more talent in his little finger than they did in their whole bodies, all of them,” she said.
‘GREATEST COMIC SINCE CHAPLIN’
Humphries was remembered as the most “successful and hilarious” comedian since Charlie Chaplin, as tributes poured in from around the world for the iconic Australian star following his death.
Humphries – who was globally renowned for creating several iconic characters including Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson – died at Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital on Saturday from complications following hip surgery. His wife Lizzie Spender and daughters Emily and Tessa were by his side.
Australian author Kathy Lette, who was Humphries’ longtime friend and UK neighbour for 26 years, appeared on Channel 10’s The Project on Sunday to discuss his legacy, saying the world never see a comedian of his stature again.
“He has left us an incredible legacy of laughter. We’ll never see his like again. To me he is the most brilliant comedian since Charlie Chaplin,” she told host Sarah Harris.
“Try to think of someone who has been more successful and hilarious.
“His whole condition was to be hilarious.”
Farewell to my favourite person. Heartbroken. RIP dearest darling. #BarryHumphriespic.twitter.com/ZeVVKsITUZ
— Kathy Lette (@KathyLette) April 22, 2023
Lette – who described Humphries as her “favourite person” – went on to reveal she visited the star in hospital shortly before his death and said he had the ward in stitches.
“Barry didn’t have a skerrick of self pity so when you’d visit him in hospital his one concern was you felt at ease and that he was making the nurses laugh,” she said.
“So the last time I saw him in hospital he was joking about how the grim reaper had been walking up and down the hospital corridors at night saying, ‘He didn’t collect me this time.’
“And he joked with the nurses, saying ‘How many did he collect?’ and I said to him, ‘As you’re here they probably died laughing’.
“Then he made jokes about what the grim reaper was wearing and what a terrible outfit he has, how it was the original hoodie.
“Being in hospital visiting Barry, I almost had to be hospitalised from hilarity.”
Lette also penned a tribute to her beloved friend.
“Barry has been taking our cultural temperature with a satirical thermometer for nearly 70 years,” she said.
“He is simply sewn into our psyche in his many guises as Housewife Superstar Dame Edna (the only ennoblement ever anointed by the then PM Gough Whitlam); cringe-worthy cultural attache Les Patterson who had the ability to call out whole herds of elephants in every room; and their antithesis, the pair’s manager Mr Humphries.
“Even though Sir Les probably thought ‘erudite’ was some kind of glue, Barry was an intellectual.
“He was also a kind, witty, wise, warm and generous friend; a mentor and comedic co-conspirator since my late teens. The greatest comic since Charlie Chaplin, his loss will be felt the world over. I just can’t believe that the great showman is not coming back for an encore.”
KING CHARLES CALLED HUMPHRIES DAYS BEFORE HIS DEATH
Humphries threw away the rule book of comedy and used his alter egos to make Brits laugh out loud for more than six decades.
The Australian expat swiftly found megastar fame in England in the 1960s as the waspish but warm Aussie housewife Dame Edna Everage.
He regaled eager audiences with his dangerous and uncouth humour, lampooning everyone from the then Prince Charles and wife Camilla at the Palladium’s Royal Variety Show, to mockingly dancing and crooning on stage with Cliff Richard.
Audiences loved Edna’s brazen vulgarity in Australia and in 1959 when Humphries moved to England, he cultivated a reputation as the loveable globe-bestriding escapee from Down Under.
Humphries was swiftly launched into a new career of prime time chat shows and worldwide fame.
Edna was handed her own television specials, among them The Dame Edna Experience (1987) and The Dame Edna Treatment (2007), before Humphries created several other comic characters – Sir Les Patterson, a vulgar, drunken Australian politician, and Sandy Stone, a senile old man.
Indeed such was England’s love for Australia’s biggest export, that days before his death in a Sydney hospital, King Charles personally called him while Humphries was being treated for complications from hip surgery.
“The king is saddened by the death of Mr Humphries and is personally writing to his family,” a palace spokesman told News Corp on the announcement of Humphries’ death.
For all his different faces, Humphries admitted he never truly got beneath his own skin.
Even though in his autobiography My Gorgeous Life he revealed he was a friend and confidante of Queen Elizabeth II and has acted as an advisor to prime ministers and presidents, he confessed he never truly knew himself.
Humphries adored Britain, calling it “my second home”, and the admiration was mutual.
Former British prime minister Boris Johnson called him “one of the greatest ever Australians”.
“He was a comic genius who used his exuberant alter egos, Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson, to say the otherwise unsayable. Also an infallibly brilliant Spectator contributor. What a loss,” he said.
Broadcaster Dame Joan Bakewell, a friend of Humphries, said 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 … and savagely funny” in a tweet.
He said that with Humphries’ 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”.
When Humphries went on BBC Radio program Desert Island Discs in May 2009 he told presenter Kirsty Young that he would like to write his own obituary and that his egomaniacal alter-ego would not get a mention. “It would be pretty well a catalogue of excessive compliments,” he said.
“It would just say what a very nice person I am and what a generous hearted and sentimental person I am and it wouldn’t make any reference to Edna at all,” he explained before adding, “there is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously”.
‘TALENTED AND ICONIC’: HUMPHRIES’ FAMILY IN STATE FUNERAL TALKS
The Victorian government is in talks with the family of Barry Humphries to determine how the legendary Australian comedian will be honoured.
“It really is the end of a pretty profound era,” Creative Industries Minister Steve Dimopoulos said on Sunday.
“He was extraordinarily talented and iconic – and he was Victorian.
“It’s no accident that someone of that stature globally comes from Victoria.”
He confirmed the state government is currently “in conversation” with the comedian’s family.
“I want to extend my condolences to Barry Humphries’ family and everybody who loved him at a time that is very sad for them,” he said.
“But we’re in conversation with his family in relation to the best way to honour his legacy and his contribution to Victoria, so there’ll be more information to come at an appropriate time.”
He said a “range” of ideas were being discussed, such as a state funeral.
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Originally published as Barry Humphries: Piers Morgan slams Melbourne International Comedy Festival
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