One of the shows was called Dame Edna Everage, was in a typical clever wordplay, The Last Night of the Poms and is a measure of the status of the show that the housewife does in Australia in a position to fill the building, prompting the joke: the Royal Albert Hall in London.

But fans of the superstar housewife from Moonee Ponds to be forced last night to be regarded as Edna anagrammatically always encrypted letters in his name - END - come into view. Barry Humphries, the creator of the mega-star and director, has suggested that the tour will start in Australia, the end of stage performances in his home to mark.

Connoisseur of comedy genius, it is expected that plans have been met for a farewell concert in London and Broadway, as an artist of this magnitude - as Dame Joan Sutherland and Maria Callas - the audience wants and needs a chance to say goodbye and to say thanks . Or was once made memorable get too warm to the Court of St. James by the cultural attaché of Australia, Sir Les Patterson, another character in the group of Humphries, "her hands at the opening and the applause given to those which it deserves.”(Only a few have entenders as inventive as Humphries doubled.)

If Dame Edna first appeared in London interpreted in the 1960s, which was seen by some as an act of resistance. But similar in some ways perhaps only transvestites Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie turn, that was the preliminary nature of remarkable precision and depth at which the sex change was almost incidental to the vocal and physical detail, the latter being supported by the possession of well-formed legs Humphries unusual for a man.