The Amazing Barry Humphries Trivia Quiz

Answer: Melbourne

Barry was born to Louisa and Eric, a builder who made himself wealthy. They lived in a comfortable middle-class suburb of Melbourne. Barry spent his time playing dressing up and entertaining friends and family. He was nicknamed "Sunny Sam". In contrast to his parents, he was very keen on the arts and a voracious reader, and was appalled when his mother gave away all his books to a charity, because she thought he'd read them all.

Answer: Dada

Dada was originally a reaction to the futility of World War I. Examples include Duchamp's piece called "Fountain" - a signed urinal, or Ernst's disturbing Freud-inspired "Dada Gauguin". While at the University of Melbourne, Barry conducted a series of dada-esque art works or pranks that achieved him some notoriety.

His "Pus in Boots" was a pair of Wellington boots filled with custard. He also carried out a prank on aeroplanes where he pretended to vomit into a sick bag filled with Russian salad, and would then proceed to eat the salad.

Answer: Private Eye

Along with other ambitious creative Australians, including Germaine Greer and Clive James, Barry Humphries emigrated to the UK. He fell in with the people around the new wave of British comedy, starring at Peter Cook's club "The Establishment", and creating the Barry McKenzie character for the magazine Cook bankrolled, "Private Eye". Barry McKenzie was an unsophisticated stereotypical Aussie.

The strip became popular and led to a movie in 1972, "The Adventures of Barry McKenzie", in which Humphries played multiple roles alongside UK greats such as Cook and Spike Milligan, with another Barry, Barry Crocker, in the title role.

Answer: Edna Everage

Edna Everage was based on several people, including Barry Humphries's mother. Her name came from a beloved nanny who disappeared quickly from young Barry's life. Known for her outlandish glasses and propensity for throwing gladioli, she moved from being a simple housewife to a "Housewife Superstar", and, eventually, a "giga star". Barry Humphries used her as a mouthpiece for satirising attitudes and mores on stage, TV, disc, and film.

He appeared in this character as Aunt Edna in the first "Barry McKenzie" movie, and in the sequel, "Barry McKenzie Holds His Own", Edna was made a Dame by Australian PM Gough Whitlam.

Answer: alcohol

Barry Humphries was a heavy drinker. An intervention by Humphries's family, after a particularly frightening episode when he was discovered beaten up in a gutter, persuaded him to check into a clinic for alcohol addition in 1973. He gave up alcohol from then onwards. He was unsuccessful in attempts to persuade his friend, fellow alcoholic Peter Cook, to follow suit.

Barry Humphries regularly performed in multiple characters in the same production. Sir Les Patterson, uncouth and foul mouthed, with stained clothes, was the antithesis of Edna Everage's aspirations of refinement and classiness. Although Humphries gave up alcohol in the 1970s, he enjoyed portraying the unrepentant lush on TV interviews. Patterson was awarded a spoof degree by the Cambridge Union.

Answer: Tony

Barry Humphries won a Special Tony Award for a Live Theatrical Event for "Dame Edna: The Royal Tour" in 2000. He had previously won an Olivier/Society of West End Theatres award in the UK for Comedy Performance of the Year, in 1979. He did multiple tours as Dame Edna, and appeared in TV shows such as the chat show "The Dame Edna Experience", and "Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch".

Answer: Visited him in prison

Barry Humphries had a gift for making friends. Among close friends was comedy legend Spike Milligan, who was friendly with both Humphries and his wife, Lizzie Spender, the daughter of the poet, Stephen Spender. Other friends included Peter Cook, fellow Aussie emigrant to the UK, Clive James, and the leading Australian painter, Arthur Boyd.

A less obvious friend was Jeffrey Archer. The former MP, who turned very successfully to writing, appeared on "The Dame Edna Experience" in the 1980s, and "The Dame Edna Treatment" in 2007. When he was imprisoned for perjury in 2001, Barry Humphries visited him in prison. Later on, Archer bankrolled one of Humphries's productions. Barry Humphries appeared as a guest on Archer's "Unputdownable" podcast in 2021, in which Archer said that he had heard people say that Humphries was the most significant comedian since Charlie Chaplin. I can't disagree.

Answer: Bruce

The 2003 movie "Finding Nemo" is a Pixar animation about a father and son clownfish who are separated. In the quest to find his son, Nemo, by Marlin, the father (Albert Brooks), and Dory, a blue tang (Ellen DeGeneres), they encounter a group of three sharks who have decided to abstain from eating fish. Humphries plays Bruce, the leader of the group, whose catchphrase is "Fish are friends, not food". Unfortunately his sharky nature comes out.

Answer: Oliver!

The show "I'd Do Anything" was designed to select artists to appear as Nancy and Oliver in an Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Lionel Bart's musical, "Oliver!". Graham Norton presented, and Barry Humphries acted as judge alongside John Barrowman and Denise van Outen. Humphries had appeared as "Mr Sowerberry, the undertaker, in the original West End production in 1960.

Answer: Mata Hari

Barry Humphries said that he never learned any sensible money habits, especially as his father's way of showing affection was buying things, so the young Humphries was a spoiled child. He is an avid collector, buying an edition of "The Importance of Being Earnest" by one of his heroes, Oscar Wilde, that turned out to have Wilde's writing inside. His most expensive purchase, apart from property, was a g-string owned by Mata Hari, who was executed as a spy in World War I.

77 year old Barry Humphries provided the voice for the Goblin King in the first film of Peter Jackson's "Hobbit trilogy", 2012s "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey".

In 2012, Humphries embarked on a farewell tour, which he called "Eat, Pray, Laugh!". Despite that, he continued to work on stage, TV and film, and when interviewed in 2022 said he would never retire.