Isn't it exciting? Dame Edna creator Barry Humprhies has been awarded a CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List this year! The newspapers and media are awash this weekend with the news!!!
Left: Headline on the front page of the The Times, with photo by Lisa Marie Williams.BBC Radio 4 featured an interview with Dame Edna on Saturday morning (Barry Humphries learned of the honour after coming off stage in Brisbane, Australia, where he is performing in "Back With a Vengeance", his 50th Anniversary show).
Dame Edna expressed relief that Barry Humphries had finally been given an honour: "The envy and bitterness from him...I'm a dame, and even Les Patterson is a knight, and Barry has been chafing in a pretty undignified way. He's really the David Gest to my Liza Minnelli."
She went on to explain that she had a part to play in the award. "I had a little word with the Queen. I said 'Please! Throw him a crumb! Throw him something!"
The interviewer John Humphries (the nice Humphries, Dame Edna declared) went on to enquire about an award that Barry had been given previously in Australia, and Dame Edna confirmed that it was called "The Order of the Golden Wombat"...or something like that. She also said that despite the republican controversy, Australians had recently voted to keep their ties to the crown. But she also confided "I know her majesty was praying and hoping (that they wouldn't vote to remain her subjects) so she wouldn't have to make the long journey and be given very unacceptable tea cosies." She went on to say that, in any event "I'm really thought of as Australian royalty!".
Returning to the award, she seemed relieved to report that this new honour meant that Barry has calmed down a great deal despite his envy of Edna. "He's transformed...he can't wait to wear it, whatever it is...I think he expects a coronet!"
And finally, of her new show "Back With a Vengeance", she humbly told listeners "It's the best show I've ever done....every new one is!"
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