Barry Humphries - One-man Shows

One-man Shows

Humphries' forte has always been his one-man satirical stage revues, in which he appears as Edna Everage and a host of other character creations, including Les Patterson and Sandy Stone. There can be few (if any) comedians who can boast the career longevity he has enjoyed with Dame Edna, whose popularity shows no signs of flagging after fifty years. Humphries' success is a tribute to the tremendous skill, style and insight—and hard work—that he invests in performing two-and-a-half hour shows of entirely original material, laced with ad-libbing, improvisation and audience participation segments.

Humphries has had many successful stage productions in London, most of which he subsequently toured internationally. Despite his later popularity, he encountered stiff resistance in the early years of his career—his first London one-man show A Nice Night's Entertainment (1962) received scathing reviews and it was several years before he made a second attempt. He gained considerable notoriety with his next one-man revue Just a Show, staged at London's Fortune Theatre in 1969. It polarised the critics but was a hit with audiences and became the basis of a growing cult following in the UK. He continued to gain popularity with his early '70s shows including A Load of Olde Stuffe (1971) and At Least You Can Say You've Seen It (1974–75).

He finally broke through to widespread critical and audience acclaim in Britain with his 1976 London production Housewife, Superstar! at the Apollo Theatre. Its success in Britain and Australia led Humphries to try his luck with the show in New York in 1977, but it proved to be a disastrous repeat of his experience with Just a Show. Humphries later summed up his negative reception by saying: "When The New York Times tells you to close, you close".

His next show was Isn't It Pathetic at His Age (1978). Like many of his shows, the title quotes one of the remarks his mother often made when she took Humphries to the theatre to see superannuated overseas actors touring in Australia during his youth.

His subsequent one-man shows include:

• A Night with Dame Edna (1979), for which he won an Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance
• An Evening's Intercourse with Dame Edna (1982)
• Three seasons of Back with a Vengeance (1987–1988, 2005–2007)
• Look at Me When I'm Talking to You (1996)
• Edna, The Spectacle (1998) at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, where he held the record as the only solo act to fill the theatre (since it opened in 1663).
• Remember You're Out which toured Australia in 1999
• Back with a Vengeance which toured Australia in 2007
• Dame Edna Live: The First Last Tour toured the US in 2009

He has made numerous theatrical tours in Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and in the Far and Middle East. In 2003 he toured Australia with his show, Getting Back to My Roots (and Other Suckers).