Forget Dame Edna, possums

HE IS best known as the Dame with a preference for possums – but Barry Humphries would like to airbrush alter ego Dame Edna Everage from his life.

SPOOKY Alter ego Edna Everidge would not get a mention if Barry wrote his obituary SPOOKY: Alter ego Edna Everidge would not get a mention if Barry wrote his obituary

The 75-year-old wants to write his own obituary and the character he has played for more than 30 years wouldn’t get a mention.

“It would be pretty well a catalogue of excessive compliments. It would just say what a very nice person I am, and what a generous hearted and sentimental person I am, and it wouldn’t make any reference to Edna at all,” he told Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, broadcast today at 11.15am.

Humphries’ eagerness to be rid of the bespectacled matriarch will surprise fans, although the titles of his forthcoming tours may hint at his feelings.

He hits the road in the US with Dame Edna: My First Last Tour, while the UK leg is Last Night of the Poms.

Dame Edna hosted chat shows in her Nineties heyday, and won over Broadway audiences. Her beginnings, said Humphries, who was born in Australia, could be traced back to overbearing aunts.

She was “instigated by all these women who began by peering into my cot and ended up clapping and applauding when I sang at a little family gathering”.

As for Edna’s spooky success, he said: “She’s a very shy, rather shrill and dowdy woman but we all know, don’t we, that frumps can sometimes triumph.”

Comments Unavailable

Sorry, we are unable to accept comments about this article at the moment. However, you will find some great articles which you can comment on right now in our Comment section.

Would you like to receive news notifications from Daily Express?