Barry joins Dame Edna, Sir Les

Barry Humphries would be thrilled to be posthumously appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in King Charles III’s first Birthday Honours. “I like medals, and all that sort of thing,’’ Humphries said after Queen Elizabeth presented his Commander of the British Empire order in 2007. “I’ve just celebrated my 50 years on the stage, so it’s a great honour that my sovereign should bestow this on me, and I’m very, very pleased. She said that she’d been greatly entertained by a lot of my shows.’’

So was the King, who phoned Humphries, 89, shortly before he died on April 22 in St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. A few years ago, the then prince of Wales and duchess of Cornwall roared with laughter when Dame Edna Everage gatecrashed the Royal Box at the London Palladium but left because “they’ve found me a better seat’’.

The nation’s top gong matches the elevation of Moonee Ponds housewife Mrs Edna Everage to the rank of dame in 1974 and Leslie Colin Patterson’s knighthood that accompanied his appointment to the Court of St James’s as Australian cultural attache. Practising what he preached – “never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century” – Humphries once described Sir Les as “me, if I’d kept on drinking’’.

In what would have been Humphries’ 70th (platinum) anniversary on stage this year, he richly deserved an AC for his “eminent service to the arts as a comedian, actor, author, satirist and entertainer, to the promotion of Australian culture, and as a patron of organisations”.

In life and on stage, Humphries had more chivalry, class and wit than the Melbourne International Comedy Festival that made itself a bad joke in 2019 when it scrapped the Barry Award for the best comedy show at the festival. Event organisers acted after he described transgenderism as “terrible ratbaggery”, “self-mutilation’’ and a “fashion – how many different kinds of lavatory can you have?”. It was “pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers”, he said. After Humphries’ death, festival organisers promised to plan “a fitting tribute to his comic genius and leading role in creating a global platform for Australian comedy”.

But to Humphries’ way of thinking, that traditional Australian antihero, the wowser – ­humourless, ignorant and vindictive – was “still with us, disguised as a liberal-minded upholder of the politically correct”.