Barry Humphries, the man behind beloved drag doyenne Dame Edna Everage, has revealed that Edna’s new stage show, Eat Pray Laugh!, will be her last.
Telling Australia’s Daily Telegraph that he’s feeling “a bit senior,” Humphries says performing is “the best aerobics you could do… but it’s grueling.”
He plans on working on another book, traveling and working on his paintings. “Edna will crop up on television, I guess, but not in a live show,” he added.
Though she’s won a Tony and sold out shows on in major U.S. cities, Dame Edna’s truly a national treasure both in England—where she recently attended the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton—and in her Down Under homeland. A street in Melbourne has been named after the famous female impersonator (Dame Edna Place) and Humphries has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia
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Eat Pray Laugh!—which begins in Canberra on June 22 before moving onto Newcastle and Sydney—will be a more cohesive piece than previous shows like An Audience With Dame Edna and The Royal Tour, Humphries tells the Telegraph:
“I felt I needed a director and a fellow writer to keep an eye on things and help me create a bridge between the characters so they are not separate monologues, disconnected, but there will be some kind of arc linking them and I thought [playwright Joanna Murray-Smith] would be the perfect person to help. I want to make it the best show I’ve done.”
We hope Edna brings Laugh to the U.S. before putting that lavender wig in a box for the last time.
Photo: Aurelien Guichard
David Ehrenstein
Adore Dame Edna! I saw “An Audience with’ several years back here in L.A. and it was teriffic.
Is Shock Treatment available on DVD? If not it should be Humphries plays the doctor assigned to “treat” Brad in this sequel to The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
It’s very special.
AC Walker
Shock Treatment is available on DVD, yes. I own it.
coleman wigger
She/he will be missed so much. One of the few GREATS left in this world. I must give her one last HOO RAH!!! 🙂
camote
Worked with her once, and she was completely natural—no airs or pretensions….and so much fun.
Stef
I so loved her in Alley McBeal. I won’t miss her racist remarks. Her views that were two-dimensional stereotypes of Latinos and Latin Americans, revealing not only her racism but also her profound ignorance of who we are.
But I have to believe Claire Otoms didn’t have a racist bone in her body, but again that was TV; vs. giving column advice in Vanity Fair.
I hope a nasty German nurse maid takes care of her when she can’t tend to her “Senior” self; a real Dolores Claiborne experience.
cici
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Ima Cornholer
Please bring your fabulous show to the USA. HUGS & LOVE!