Stef Jaric
simply as ‘Edna’ a caricature of a stereotypical
suburban-Melbourne housewife.
Let’s face it, comedy fans, Australia isn’t famous
for its comedians. Try as we might to change
the worlds perception of us, stereotypes tend to
stick better than promoted visions of Australian
life.
Humphries allowed ‘Edna’ to evolve over the
years into an outlandish character all her own,
no longer recognisable as suburban housewife,
‘she’ had graduated to Dame-hood becoming
Dame Edna!
So when the world thinks of Australia, the general
picture is one of a warm beach encrusted land
At a stage show in the 70’s at a Sydney Leagues
Club, Humphries accidentally sowed the seeds of
a parallel character to Edna, when he introduced
his Edna character himself by pretending to be
barbecue tongs clamped around freshly grilled
prawns, all set among a smattering of iconic
landmarks and a healthy serving of deadly
creatures that can kill you with but a look.
Amongst this stereotypical world view of our
Australian comedy, because when Paul Hogan
shot to worldwide fame in the 1980’s as an
Australian tourism promoter and of star of his
fondly loved ‘Crocodile Dundee’ movies, (which
despite the passing of time are still a ratings
winner whenever played on free-to-air TV), he
demonstrated that Australians love to have a
laugh at ourselves! We can take what others
see and poke fun at it, or to use that great
colloquialism “to take the p*ss”.
Australian Comedy, along with the likes of other
he played as a loud, lecherous, untidy oaf who
eventually morphed into ‘Sir Les Patterson’,
Australian public servant extraordinaire and
Australia’s Cultural Attache to various countries
depending on wherever in the world Humphries
happened to be touring at the time.
abhorrent in a politician/public-servant, but
strangely everyone has a soft spot for Sir Les,
and the character is extremely well received.
way for others to satirise typical characters
of Australian life, most notably Paul Hogan’s
character of ‘Hoges’, who was a parody of Paul
Hogan himself as his former occupation of that
the long-running sketch show, ‘The Paul Hogan
Show’.
It was around this time when Sir Les, Dame Edna,
(The Comedy Company), Nick Giannopoulos
with the Australian public in the late 70’s, when
Movies) to name a few!
onto Melbourne’s comedy scene and started out
parodying media identities such as Don Lane
and writing comedy sketches for the Melbourne
comedy/theatre scene.
There are many others too numerous to mention,
but it can be said that this group through their
unique styles of comedy and their comedic
stardom in the late-80’s as the driving force
and loved character of Dame Edna, who began