‘But is it publishable, Rowan?’ That was the last exchange I had with Barry Humphries, on the phone earlier this week. I assured him it was and that the item we were discussing will be appearing in The Spectator Australia this coming week. Which it will.
The piece that Barry was so concerned about was what he himself dismissively called ‘a bit of doggerel’ he had whipped up which he intended to read out at The Spectator Australia Writers Long Lunch, to which Barry Humphries was my invited guest of honour. Barry had accepted the invitation some months ago, despite being in hospital following a hip replacement and various other increasingly serious health issues. His great friend Bruce Beresford, the Aussie film director and Speccie columnist who delighted international cinema-goers with everything from The Adventures of Barry McKenzie to Driving Miss Daisy, assured me that Barry was determined to be well enough in time to attend the lunch and in fact spoke of little else.
This year’s Speccie lunch had been organised to coincide with the visit to these colonial shores of Andrew Neil, who knows Barry well. When it became clear that Barry would probably not be attending, Andrew and I visited him instead at St. Vincent’s hospital. For an hilarious hour Barry Humphries regaled us with stories about the Irish nurses on the ward, his opinion on several political issues, and his continuing irritation with the fact that the Melbourne International Comedy Festival – which he and Peter Cook had founded – had cancelled his involvement with the festival and even removed his name from ‘The Barry’s’, one of the awards. Of the chief antagonist who had campaigned to have him removed, a contemporary so-called ‘comedian’ – Barry simply said, ‘Hannah Gadsby’s about as funny as an orphanage on fire.’
Barry also joked about a new Adventures of Barry McKenzie he was planning. ‘Bazza has gone blind through years and years of self-abuse,’ he quipped, ‘and lands a job as the Spectator’s Poetry Editor.’
Andrew Neil and I left the hospital with tears in our eyes. Of laughter.
But not before Barry insisted that the world be reminded that it was he, Barry Humphries, who had invented the nickname ‘The Speccie’ for this illustrious publication, something of which he was immensely proud.
Which led to his promising to send me something for the Spectator’s Lunch – the aforementioned ‘doggerel’, which I will indeed be publishing in The Spectator Australia this week. Barry was keen for me to read it out aloud at the Spectator lunch, a task I took to with relish. Over several phones calls he assiduously coached me on the finer points of his required performance. On the evening after that long lunch – which was only ten days ago – Barry was on the phone to me, eager to know how his ‘bit of doggerel’ had been received.
‘Rapturously,’ I responded.
With Barry Humphries, how could it have been any other way?
Rowan Dean is the editor of The Spectator Australia.
