My Life As Me

Barry Humphries's autobiography, More Please, was highly praised. This follow-up does not pick up where its predecessor left off but is what he calls a 'parallel memoir' adding events, stories and anecdotes that Humphries did not put in the first book. He reveals himself to be a complex man, a bibliophile and art collector who has travelled widely, the friend of famous poets, artists and writers. The photographs in this volume show him with a large cast of celebrities from the satirists of the Establishment Club to John Betjeman and Salvador Dali. He refers briefly to the unhappy periods in his personal life but gives detailed and hilarious stories of his stage appearances as Les Patterson, Sandy Stone and the great Dame herself. The passages relating his encounters with the great and famous are interesting and often funny but his descriptions of family life in Melbourne are a triumph. He was indulged by his parents but impatient and embarrassed by their provincial and respectable ways. Dame Edna first made her appearance on the stage when Humphries was at university and the sketch where she welcomed guests to Australia into her lovely home was screened as part of the inaugural programme for Australian television. This success baffled Humphries' parents, who deplored what they saw as their eldest son's failures and excesses. Louisa Humphries was an affectionate parent but she had strong opinions about everything from alcohol to foreigners and constantly warned her children not to draw attention to themselves. Luckily for us her son ignored her. (Kirkus UK)