AN EVENING'S INTERCOURSE WITH BARRY HUMPHRIES
Venue: Theatre Royal Drury Lane 1982

It is always a pleasure when one of those spooky, abusive missives from Barry Humphries lands on my desk. Imagine my delight when he invited me to partake of a little evening’s intercourse with himself and a few dingo mates. I am inclined to be besotted with Barry, but despite having stopped off true journo style for a fortifying noggin or three in a hostelry en route to Drury Lane, I must confess that the foreplay was dragged out far too long before the main event could be enjoyed.

In this case it was threeplay. First to jump aboard was Ozzie cultural attaché Sir Lesley Colin Patterson, who also seemed to have assisted the local taverns in making an honest bob, and who slavered and flailed, rubicund, about the stage, seized in a private paroxysm of mirth. His penchant for audience participation swung underway. He selected his victim: ”Her face is like a half-sucked mango. Last time I saw a head like that it had a hook in it”, he guffawed laughing. Then “Come and look at this tart”, he advised the backstage crew who did just that.

He was succeeded by the stringy, whispering cineaste Phil Philby and Melbourne ‘returned serviceman and revenant’ Alexander  Horace Stone, a spook who sat amongst the dust and cobweb festooned reminders of his former life. Neither creation, though worked terribly well as a vehicle for biting satire: one felt that when it comes to reflecting upon life down under the Dame has said it all.

In a skilled marketing exercise, unrivalled even by Soho, Barry had thoughtfully placed a number of  ‘aids to intercourse’ on sale in the foyer. Clutching a few brown- paper wrapped goodies I returned after the break to see the gilded and ornate theatre transformed to the intimacy of a pillow talk exchange by the honey-lipped  matronly megastar, Dame Edna Everage. The occupants of the boxes were greeted as “bidet dwellers” and those in the gods were frequently hailed with the cry, “Hello paupers”.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the skilled comic performance which followed was the Dame’s ability to surprise; just when all her aces seemed to have been played, she would turn, eyes glinting, to unveil another smasher. She is, however, showing signs of suffering from the Ken Dodd syndrome – not knowing when to leave the stage