More Please: An Autobiography

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Becoming at first nostalgic, then adventurous and then deliriously successful, 'More Please' is an autobiography of a true aussie icon. Asked by an Australian journalist what it was like to win a Tony Award, he said "it was like winning a thousand Gold Logies at the same time". Barry Humphries's name stripped from Melbourne comedy festival award after transgender controversy". As his father's building business prospered, Humphries was sent to Melbourne Grammar School where he spurned sport, detested mathematics, shirked cadets "on the basis of conscientious objection" and matriculated with strong results in English and art.

In 1997 Humphries reprised the role of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh's award-winning revival at the London Palladium. I also found that entertaining people gave me a great feeling of release, making people laugh was a very good way of befriending them. In the 1960s, throughout his sojourn in London, Humphries became increasingly dependent on alcohol; by the last years of the decade, his friends and family began to fear that his addiction might cost him his career – or even his life. Humphries said in 2016 that "slowly the character has deepened, so I begin to understand and appreciate him, and finally feel myself turning into him".He was one of the many friends who tried in vain to help Peter Cook, who himself eventually died from alcohol-related illnesses. In 2000 Humphries took his Dame Edna: The Royal Tour show to North America winning the inaugural Special Tony Award for a Live Theatrical Event in 2000 and won two National Broadway Theatre Awards for "Best Play" and for "Best Actor" in 2001. Because Barry Humphries deliberately furnished would-be biographers with whimsical fictions and blatant mystifications, the true details of his life are among the best-kept secrets of our time. Their friendship was, in part, based around numerous shared interests, including Victorian architecture, Cornwall and the music hall.

Wubbo Music" (Humphries said that "wubbo" is a pseudo-Aboriginal word meaning "nothing") is thought to be one of the earliest recordings of experimental music in Australia. However, the song "That's Your Funeral" was omitted from the RCA Victor original Broadway cast album so Humphries is not heard at all on it. In 1957 Humphries moved to Sydney and joined Sydney's Phillip Street Theatre, which became Australia's leading venue for revue and satirical comedy over the next decade. Humphries' past is a bombed and cratered landscape, except for his youth which stands evergreen in its quirky, vanishing details.Humphries had written and performed songs and sketches in university revues, so after leaving university he joined the newly formed Melbourne Theatre Company (MTC). Humphries revived the Edna character (for what he said would be the last time) and the revue proved to be a major hit, playing eight shows a week for 14 months.