Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization Backstage With Barry Humphries

In this brilliant & award-winning book, Lahr takes us backstage with Barry Humphries & into the weird & wonderful world of his show-stopping creation -- Dame Edna Everage. Humphries is a prodigious comic talent. His co-presence in Edna -- a character very real to the public -- actively invites speculation about reality & fantasy, male & female. Hilarious & malign, polite & rude, high-brow & very low, the character Humphries inhabits is a bundle of contradictions. Lahr investigates how a provincial dandy from Melbourne, Australia, transformed himself into one of the most unlikely megastars of today. In showing the connection between Humphries' comedy & the life it parodies, Lahr explores the nature of comedy & what makes us laugh. Photos.Lahr, John is the author of 'Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilization Backstage With Barry Humphries' with ISBN 9780756766207 and ISBN 0756766206.