Aunt Edna’s Timely Reminder About Systems

About four months BC (Before COVID), I was in Adelaide working with a client. The week was progressing well and the end was in sight. Dave, my client, invited me to join him in a visit to the theatre. He had two tickets to the Adelaide performance of Dame Edna’s farewell tour of Australia, and his wife was unable to attend.

So we popped into a tram, entered the Convention Centre and found our seats, ready to be entertained. Now, for those who haven’t come across Dame Edna – Dame Edna Everage – she is a grand old Dame of the stage, a veritable icon of Australian culture, sort of. In reality she is one of two alter egos of the actor Barry Humphries AO CBE. Barry is getting on, being 85 years old at the time of this performance. Dame Edna of course is ageless.

The show started off with the usual cringe-worthy jokes that are the hallmark of Dame Edna’s public life, and extended to inviting innocent members of the audience to join her on the stage to be ridiculed and belittled as Dame Edna rambled through her life story. Madge, Dame Edna’s long-suffering recipient of a thousand slurs and put-downs, served cask wine to the hapless guests, but not enough to blunt the barb of the Dame’s acid tongue.

The talk show format dated back to the 70’s, and I suspect the script was plucked straight from the archives as it was indistinguishable from the shows I remember from the black-and-white era. There were a couple of references to current events but no serious attempt to bring the show into the present day. To be honest, it was not an enjoyable show, and the audience response reflected this.