Barry Humphries has been bestowed yet another gong, and one can only wonder what Dame Edna Everage would have thought.
Her former manager has been recognised with the highest level of King’s Birthday honours, for “eminent achievement and merit of the highest degree in service to Australia or to humanity at large”.
Sounds about right, and comes with a very nice medal, for those who like that sort of thing.
Of course, it’s just on a decade since Dame Edna sat next to Charles and Camilla in their royal box at the 2013 Royal Variety performance, before someone found her a better seat.
Humphries died aged 89 in April having delighted and outraged audiences for more than half a century, using satirical characters to say the unspeakable.
Among them was Sir Les Patterson, Australia’s cultural attache to the Court of St James, the melancholy and rambling Sandy Stone, and the chundering Ocker in Pommyland, Barry McKenzie.
For his comedic efforts, Humphries has been posthumously appointed a Companion of the Order of Australia.
While the AC is distinctly better than an AO (which Humphries was awarded back in 1982) it’s a mere trifle compared to his appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
British/Australian comedian Ben Elton has also been recognised, just as his musical We Will Rock You returns to London’s West End.
“I am very surprised but hugely honoured to receive this award,” he told AAP.
Elton was a writer on the seminal sitcoms The Young Ones and Blackadder among many other shows, and has penned more than a dozen novels.
Groundbreaking comedians Judith Lucy and Denise Scott have also been recognised for their services to the arts.
The pair have done several stand-up shows together and Lucy has just wrapped her starring role in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days with the Melbourne Theatre Company.
Soprano Marina Prior has been recognised for services to musical theatre – just as Mary Poppins, in which she plays not one but two parts, finishes its run in Melbourne.
She found out about the honour via email and initially thought it was a hoax – except no-one asked for her bank details.
“It was the last thing that I was expecting … I’m extremely grateful and feel very blessed,” she told AAP.
Prior, 59, has starred in Cats, Les Miserables, The Phantom of the Opera and West Side story, to name a few, over her four-decade career.
“I feel proud that I’m representing the middle aged to older woman, we’re not invisible, and we’ve got stories to tell.”
