Barry Humphries made outrageous characters convincing by seeming entirely comfortable inside them. We also value his quieter work: the dry narration of Mary and Max makes peculiar people funny without treating their loneliness as a joke.
Fi1m perspective
In Mary and Max (2009), Barry Humphries’s narrator describes peculiar behaviour without sounding remotely unsettled by it. His composure makes it funnier, and gives the lonely people in Adam Elliot’s animation a welcome sort of company. We laughed at the calmness of his delivery, because he leaves the behaviour itself to supply the joke. The film does not require its characters to become agreeable before taking them seriously. Humphries understands how little fuss that requires of the person telling their story.
His early film parts included Envy in Bedazzled (1967), but his own satirical characters gave his work its clearest identity. Dame Edna Everage was gaudy and acid-tongued; Sir Les Patterson was a vulgar cultural attaché. He played Aunt Edna and co-wrote The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972), extending that work into cinema. His one-man shows found success from 1976, while The Dame Edna Experience (1987) later put Edna to work interviewing celebrities on television. His characters gave him a way to ridicule suburban complacency and stardom.
The characters mattered because audiences accepted them as distinct personalities, giving Humphries room to deliver provocative material through them. His stage revues combined prepared material, improvisation and audience interaction, so he could respond to the people in front of him. Edna’s own claims to grandeur made her a useful person to set among celebrities: she was available for ridicule too. The weakness comes when a character has little to offer beyond another insult.
In Mary and Max, he can be funny without needing to make someone look foolish. Elliot’s writing allows misunderstandings to grow through letters, where neither correspondent can immediately correct what the other has misunderstood. Humphries’s dry narration suits that awkward delay, giving us a reason to enjoy these people’s company while their attempts to explain themselves go wrong. The film does accumulate more misfortune than their company can always bear, and we would not recommend it as uncomplicated comfort. But start there to hear how funny Humphries could be without putting anyone on the spot.
Biography
Barry Humphries was an Australian actor, comedian and satirist. He created and performed the characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson across stage, television and film for more than six decades.
Humphries appeared in numerous films, including Bedazzled (1967), Spice World (1997), Nicholas Nickleby (2002), Finding Nemo (2003) as the voice of Bruce, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) as the Great Goblin, and Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie (2016). He provided the narration for the animated film Mary and Max (2009).
He was born John Barry Humphries on 17 February 1934 in Camberwell, Melbourne, and died on 22 April 2023.
