Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A phenomenon of the age, First Lady of the Theatre, housewife triumphant and global superstar.
On the island
Eight records
from the opera Clari, the Maid of Milan
If I Had a Talking Picture of You
With the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by her husband Richard Bonynge
Dame Edna Everage and Nick Rowley
from the album The Sound of Edna
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:59But you are essentially a coper, aren't you? You are essentially a very capable woman. You could fend for yourself.
Oh, I think so. I think so. As a matter of fact, I think I've got a few little enzymes in me, not to say hormones, which would enable me to carve out a pretty rough existence for myself on a desert island. And remember, I was born on a desert island, Australia.
Presenter asks
4:13We hear a lot, Dame Edna, about your fame, your super stardom, but not quite so much about Edna the Child. What were you like as a little girl?
I was a very shy child, Sue. I still am a shy woman. I think most people who meet me … you said so sweetly you took my hand, and that courtesy was quite unnecessary. And you said, what a shy person you are to meet. And I am. People think of me as so upfront, even brash, but in reality I'm deeply vulnerable and shy, and as a kiddie, do you know I used to learn little poems and songs at school, and I was too shy to sing them to my aunties. I had to hide behind the curtains in our lounge and pretend to be the wireless.
Presenter asks
5:26Now, I don't want to embarrass you, but I mean, did you know even then as a child, Dame Edna, that there was something special about you?
The keepsakes
The book
My file effects. [It's] crammed with all the gorgeous things that I do, and the names of my friends. ... [It] will really remind me of so many happy times.
The luxury
Madge [Allsop] would be my luxury. ... she's a terrible trial, but I'd miss her if I didn't have her on that island, just sort of sitting there like a veggie.
I felt different. I felt, although I was in the throng, I felt apart. I knew that when Dame Nature stooped over my bassinet when I was a bubber, that she'd planted a very special thing in me, a little talent. She'd given me a gift. … A gift of a talent that somehow or other had to be given away to be kept. Does that sound a bit metaphysical? I give things I give my gifts away, Sue, in order to keep them. Now that is metaphysical, it's almost incomprehensible. But I do it night after night on the stage of my beautiful flesh and blood shows. It is a sharing, it is a giving of myself.
Presenter asks
10:32You see, you're not always terribly nice to people, are you? You tick off your audiences for not listening sometimes, you criticise their clothes or the husbands they've brought with them. You nearly did Larry Hagman a deal of damage on your television programme. You dropped him through the floor, didn't you?
Darling, that's called tough love. Now, was your mother, Susan … was she all the time adoring and stroking to you, or did she sometimes give you a little smack on your body? She did, yes. Did she? And the rough edge of her tongue from time to time? Not because she was being horrible to you, it was her way of caring. … A little tough love never did a kid any harm, and it never hurt an audience. And if these people think they can come in off the street and misbehave in my shows, eat chockeys, take flashlight photographs, let their attention wander for a second, I'm sorry. I will not tolerate it.
Presenter asks
13:16I wanted to ask you, really, about being a role model. As you've said many times, that for thousands of housewives you are a great example. And yet you've had your problems, haven't you, in your family life, not least a very sick husband to cope with.
Well, a man who's been clinically dead now six times that's sick, I suppose. … I have coped, I have been helped by my public. These people that you have suggested, hinted, and inferred that I have some kind of contempt for some of the time. No, you didn't say that, Sue. Sorry, darling. Now there are tears welling up in your eyes. But I have been helped immeasurably by the public who adore me. The letters that have flooded into me …
Presenter asks
26:37How you've managed to retain in all of this the common touch?
Well, because I am common. I come after all from Australia, and we're all a little bit C O M O N, as my mother used to spell it. Not to mention O R D I N A R Y. … We can't help it. And there's nothing wrong with being a little bit earthy.
“I would be at first, I think, a little bit lonely on a desert island, and yet in a spooky spiritual way, and I think I can be pretty frank and upfront with you on this in-depth programme, sometimes I feel a little bit lonely inside. I'm up there, the adulation of the crowd smothering me, the affection, the constant stroking that I get from my enormous global public still doesn't satisfy that little rather isolated little girl inside me.”
“I was a very shy child, Sue. I still am a shy woman. … People think of me as so upfront, even brash, but in reality I'm deeply vulnerable and shy, and as a kiddie, do you know I used to learn little poems and songs at school, and I was too shy to sing them to my aunties. I had to hide behind the curtains in our lounge and pretend to be the wireless.”
“I give things I give my gifts away, Sue, in order to keep them. Now that is metaphysical, it's almost incomprehensible. But I do it night after night on the stage of my beautiful flesh and blood shows. It is a sharing, it is a giving of myself.”
“My talent is not mine, Sue Lawley. It has been lent to me. And if I misbehave or I don't care and share with others, it'll be repossessed like the vacuum cleaner by the finance company.”
“I am fundamentally a Melbourne housewife who's struck it very, very lucky, and of course been prodigiously endowed by Dame Nature.”
“I have an inner life. I can draw upon these reservoirs of strength and serenity which thank goodness have built up over the years.”