Barry Humphries planned new show before death, says long time friend

Despite being bedridden in hospital in recent weeks, Barry Humphries told a dear friend he was planning on bringing his character Sir Les Patterson back ‘from retirement’.

Barry Humphries realised he was not in “showroom condition” after surgery but days before his death was still joking and researching songs related to WWII for a new show he hoped to develop.

Advertising guru, founder of M&C Saatchi and close friend of Humphries in the UK Bill Muirhead returned to Australia from the UK months ago and realised his friend was not in top shape.

The pair have known each other for decades in the UK, particularly as Muirhead was trade agent general for South Australia.

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Despite being bedridden in hospital in recent weeks Humphries told his friend he was planning on bringing his character Sir Les Patterson back ‘from retirement’.

“I rang him when I flew back to Australia and we were talking about his extended hospital stay and he just said ‘I am not in showroom condition’,” the UK-based Mr Muirhead, who has been a friend of Humphries for decades since he moved to the UK decades ago, said last night.

Barry Humphries in September, 2022. Picture: Getty Images

Humphries’ long time friend Bill Muirhead.

“He was saying ‘Les was going to fight back and everything but racism was on the cards … we spoke last Monday and we were in contact and I was helping him find a song he wanted to find about the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels (from Papua New Guinea) that was written from the Second World War, for a show.

“He said ‘was it racist’ but we checked with the Australia War Memorial in Canberra and they said ’absolutely not, it is not racist’ and he was keen for something for a new show. This was all for now.

“I knew things were serious though, his family were here … his entertainment span was decades for all our lives.

“He would have to be one of Australia’s greatest figures, entertainers, what he has done, and I am really very sad and not sure what to do. It really is devastating for someone who made so many millions of people happy for so long, who is going to do that now, who is going to make me laugh?” Muirhead said.

“He once told me how to tell a joke but no one could do it like he did, the pauses … it was genius.

“I was praying he was fine … my last conversation he was saying he was in so much pain but also just bored for being there for so long, he still had his sense of humour but that’s him and his personality.

“We will have to live without him but I don’t know how, for me he was just a genius and in my opinion Australia’s greatest ambassador and an export you cannot replace. When you make so many people happy … he could do that for everyone and he made us laugh at ourselves which I think was just brilliant.”