AustLit

'Each of the other biographies streams easily from childhood, through to the early struggles of artistic exploration, to maturity and the many comedic and theatrical projects and ventures that the artist is involved with, and to the finale of a life well lived. The text jumps from university theatre where Humphries excels at creating grotesque characters, to a country tour of Twelfth Night directed by Ray Lawler where Humphries develops Edna as a cruel impersonation of CWA women, to the appearance of Edna in a Ray Lawler review just prior to the Olympic Games in 1955, to Humphries' first stage show starring Edna, A Nice Night's Entertainment in 1962, and so on. Max Gillies began his career through student acting at Monash University in Melbourne and from there joining the Australian Performing Group, working out of the Pram Factory in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton.' (Publication abstract)

'Nowadays every second young person seems to want to be a stand-up comic, an occupation that perfectly represents the ‘gig’ economy in its precariousness and occasional nature. Anne Pender gives us mini-biographies of seven Australians who succeeded, often spectacularly, in the risky business of being a comic long before the idea of a ‘gig’ economy entered the collective mind. Beginning with Carol Raye, Pender relates, in forty or so pages each, the life stories of Barry Humphries, Noeline Brown, Max Gillies, John Clarke, Tony Sheldon, and Denise Scott – in other words, members of the two cohorts who rode the national theatre and television wave from the 1960s to the recent past.' (Introduction)