The Latest Breaking News from Edna Everage

The broadcaster recalls a true original who immersed himself in the roles of Dame Edna and Sir Les, and was a complicated mixture of vaudeville character and private intellectual

Charles said he has been ‘deeply saddened’ by the entertainer's death

The Coronation Concert is just one of the gems on TV tonight.

Why, as a raw beginner aged just 12, was I cooking for superstar Barry Humphries? The context of the night goes thus.

Try as you might you just cannot escape the forthcoming election with all those posters dangling from lampposts and the few remaining trees. The posters have been there for several months now and some are beginning to look a little the worse for wear, especially after this week's welcome rain…

Dame Edna star Barry Humphries revealed he had surgery for cancer in 2021, but it's emerged he was still battling the disease when he died on April 22

During an appearance on Desert Island Discs in 2009, Barry Humphries declared that he would be happy if his obituaries made no mention of Dame Edna Everage, the monstrous Melbourne housewife he had created half-a-century earlier. Some hope, said The Times. True, Dame Edna wasn’t his only alter ego: there was also…

Dame Edna’s creator knew what a truly great artist was, and that Australian didn’t produce them. The torment of that was the making of his brilliant, seven-decade career.

I went to Hilary Mantel’s memorial service at Southwark Cathedral last week. Sir Mark Rylance and Ben Miles, who both played her hero Thomas Cromwell, did readings and there were memories from her friends and family. Two things emerged: Mantel the feminist and Mantel the muse. They are the same…