大象传媒

Radio 2 celebrates the extraordinary life and career of Barry Humphries with some assistance from his most famous characters Dame Edna, Sir Les Patterson & Sandy Stone. Born on 17th February 1934, he had no plans to retire. Even at the age of 89, he was wowing audiences on tour with what turned out to be his final one-man show. Barry was a consummate performer to the end, not least, because he's left us wanting so much more!

Barry's autobiographical reflections and some of his rarely-heard recordings are among the treats for listeners. Plus, Barry's most recent collaborators evaluate his place in entertainment history and, Dr Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason, mother of a family of renowned classical musicians, including Sheku Kanneh-Mason (winner of 大象传媒 Young Musician 2016), reveals the huge breadth of his creative influence, as Dame Edan's version of 'Peter and the Wolf' is the family's absolute favourite. Not wanting to be out done by Prokofiev, Sir Les Patterson also introduces extracts from the musical pastiche 'Peter and the Shark'.

Barry was just a month away from recording his seventh series of his acclaimed Radio 2 series, 'Barry鈥檚 Forgotten Musical Masterpieces', when he died unexpectedly on 22nd April 2023 in Sydney (less than a year away from his 90th birthday). Writing about his beloved radio show in an article for The Radio Times in 2022, he maintained, "of all the things I do, this is my favourite!" and he hoped to be remembered as, "a radio personality" like those entertainers, who鈥檇 inspired him, when he was a little boy listening to the wireless. In 1959, Barry sailed away from sunny, spotless Melbourne, after dropping out of university. In London, his first job in London was doing nightshifts in an ice cream factory in Acton.