Dame Edna
Everage is
the star of
the
Humphries
show. Photo / Steven McNicholl
He's been a comedy favourite for more than 50 years and on Saturday night at a packed Civic Theatre Barry Humphries showed that at the age of 78 he's as perceptive, cutting and hilarious as ever.
The elaborate show roughly follows the three segments indicated in the title - eat,
pray and laugh.
It opens with the ever-scandalous Sir Les Patterson presenting something of a cooking show in his intrinsically Australian (or Kiwi) backyard, complete with garden shed, BBQ, and a rugby ball stuck in the gutter of his cottage.
Not to be held back by a bad case of Mexican food poisoning, nor his flying saliva, Australia's most politically incorrect cultural attache is keen to be the next big celebrity chef.
There's a surprise visit from one of Patterson's relatives, and a brief seance and exorcism before the next character arrives - Sandy Stone, the elderly ghost who is keeping an eye on his wife Beryl who's stuck in Sleepy Hollow rest home. What at first might seem to be pleasantly nutty ramblings are actually full of pathos and poignancy, contemplations on life and death delivered with a light touch.
