On what would have been his 90th birthday.

Rob Brydon is to pay tribute to Barry Humphries on what would have been his 90^th birthday.

The Would I Lie You? chairman is hosting an hour-long Radio 4 programme about the Dame Edna creator that features unheard archive recordings as well as interview with those who knew him.

Brydon said: ‘Barry was a comic great, a true inspiration and a friend.  It has been such an honour to present this programme and join so many friends and admirers in paying tribute to a legendary man.’

Additional interviews include close friend and colleague Bruce Beresford who talks about the moment King Charles telephoned the hospital to speak to Humphries  just before he died on April 22 last year.

Other interviewees include cartoonist Nicholas Garland, who claims he created Barry McKenzie, the randy, boozy Australian rampaging through Swinging London who starred in a hit Private Eye comic strip… a claim Humphries, who co-wrote the strips, firmly disagreed with.

The programme also includes the first interview with Barry’s sister, Barbara Johnson  since his death,while drama critic John Lahr also speaks about about the sometimes fine line between Humphries and the characters he portrayed, including the epitome of vulgarity, Sir Les Patterson.  Lahr asks if the theatrical creations could have been used as a tool to ridicule and tease the rest of the world to conceal his true self? 

When asked how he might feel without Edna and Les in his life, Humphries said that they were, ‘cathartic and God knows what might happen to me if they didn’t exist’.

Radio 4 says: ‘This Archive on 4 episode will be delving deep, unpicking Barry’s more complicated side; the satirist with a compulsion to point out the absurd or pompous, no matter how raw or uncomfortable it was. The man whose real-life contradictions flowed through his creations.’

• Archive on 4: Barry Humphries: Gloriously Uncut will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday February 17 at 8pm.

Published: 6 Feb 2024