Dame Edna Everage has been burned out by showbusiness and is retiring to an ashram. Fortunately, her creator, Barry Humphries, now 79, is still a formidable presence on stage in what purports to be his farewell tour.
Humphries is the consummate entertainer, beloved by fans and fellow comics alike over the decades, though this is largely down to the brilliance of Edna, who will go down in history as one of the great comedy creations of all time. Personally, I've always struggled with Sir Les Patterson, his second-string character, in anything more than small doses. Here, he takes up most of the first half, reinventing himself as a celebrity chef while spraying his audience and his rissoles with pints of saliva. This is the comedy of bodily fluids, outrageous anti-PC comments and casual misogyny – originally intended to satirise a particular kind of Australian male, though the satire recedes in favour of pure slapstick as Humphries glories in provoking squeals of disgust.
Sir Les belongs to a long tradition of gross-out comedy stretching from Chaucer to The Inbetweeners; even if it's not to your taste, it's hard to fault the energy and showmanship at work here. He's followed by a bittersweet monologue in the character of Sandy Stone, once described by Sir John Betjeman as "this decent man from the suburbs". The stillness and pathos work nicely as a contrast to the high-octane grotesquery of Les; Sandy's reminiscences about his child's death or his wife's treatment in the nursing home inevitably call to mind Alan Bennett's Talking Heads, though Humphries always steers the comedy just the right side of melancholy.
And then, after the interval, in she sweeps on the back of an elephant, glasses glittering, scattering shards of reflected light from her diamante gown, insulting her audience with sincere affection, and they go wild. Humphries commands the stage as Edna; many younger comics can only dream of such effortless interaction with the crowd and such sharp retorts.
Edna's act would lose nothing and gain much by dropping the occasional racist gag – there are enough of those from Les – but altogether this is a joyous swansong. Though she manoeuvres us into a standing ovation as we wave our gladioli, you can't help feeling it's been earned over a remarkable career.
