I first heard Barry Humphries as Dame Edna Everage on National Public Radio, where she had very professional interviewer Scot Simon laughing so hard he was actually pounding the table where he sat. I had several minutes like that myself during the first two of the six programs on this DVD, especially when Humphries as Dame Edna would go off on brilliantly timed comic asides that built up to explosive levels of outrageousness.
Then, I watched the live audience performance, the interview with Humphries, and then the "interview" between Dame Edna and Humphries where she took him to task for his horrible portrayal of his mother in his autobiography, broke down in tears, and then fired him as her manager. I started laughing less and less, and ended up squirming instead. By the end of it, I decided that while Humphries is a very individual talent with incredible timing and a real gift for physical and verbal comedy, there is some core of cruelty and loathing in his creation of Dame Edna that is hard to describe but very real.
After a while, "The Dame Edna Experience" is not like watching a performance, but more like watching a very lucid, audience-assisted psychosis. It's not funny; instead, it's deeply creepy. After two hours or so, I removed the DVD and decided that I never want to hear or see Dame Edna again.
Then, I watched the live audience performance, the interview with Humphries, and then the "interview" between Dame Edna and Humphries where she took him to task for his horrible portrayal of his mother in his autobiography, broke down in tears, and then fired him as her manager. I started laughing less and less, and ended up squirming instead. By the end of it, I decided that while Humphries is a very individual talent with incredible timing and a real gift for physical and verbal comedy, there is some core of cruelty and loathing in his creation of Dame Edna that is hard to describe but very real.
After a while, "The Dame Edna Experience" is not like watching a performance, but more like watching a very lucid, audience-assisted psychosis. It's not funny; instead, it's deeply creepy. After two hours or so, I removed the DVD and decided that I never want to hear or see Dame Edna again.