Hey hey it's Saturday Book

There are two stories here, and I was a bit put off by each of them. One is about the character of Dame Edna Everage (and, to a lesser extent, the characters Sandy Stone and Les Patterson); the other is about their creator and portrayer, Barry Humphries. I have long been a fan of Dame Edna, but by the end of the book had come to dislike her, and while I had no knowledge of or opinion about Humphries before reading the book, he comes through as a genuine artist and an ever greater jerk. Both Edna and Humphries come through as abusive bullies and are hard to like.

Bawdiness can be fun, but crudeness repels, and unfortunately, Edna comes through as too much of the latter. Her humor comes from humiliating both random audience members (not cool) and celebrity guests (more fun). I have only seen the TV shows, and the book made it clear that the stage performances were a great deal raunchier. The upside, I suppose, is that Dame Edna does indeed acquire the shape and substance of a real person, and Humprhies is adept at staying in character.

Barry Humphries had what many would seem a tough life, though he was raised in a comfortably middle class Australian home and attended a prestigious boys private school. But his parents paid him little attention, especially his mother, and one might see Dame Edna as an over-the-top revenge against a lingering sense of childhood oppression. From an early age, Humprhies was gifted at being outrageous, sometimes humorously but more often just annoyingly. He suffered from alcoholism, and has three failed marriages and a fourth wife at the time the book was written. He does, amazingly, have a number of loyal friends, but boy do they put up with a lot. He goes to great lengths to embarrass them, ignores them to talk on the phone while socializing, turns up at odd hours and plays some very nasty tricks on them.

And he is a monster to work for. He is described as "cold and cruel" to his staff. "He needs to feel he is above us," one says. He consistently fails to keep promises, is late for appointments, won't attend rehearsals, throws innumerable tantrums. He has a lot of trouble being direct, and is infuriated by criticism. He comes through as arrogant, vengeful, petulant, immature and excessively thin-skinned.

John Lahr has done meticulous research, and the book has integrity. It is also hard to tell how he feels about Humphries, which I suppose is good journalism, though the book sure makes the guy look bad. But I never could figure out how the book was structured. It bounces around in time, and the themes of the chapters were not clear to me.

In the end, the book is not actually a bad read, and there are moments of fun. The problem, I suspect, is the subject, and Lahr may have done the best with Dame Edna and her creator than could be done. Somehow, though, I was left wanting more.