The genius of Barry Humphries

At school in the 1970s, several of us were ardent fans of the Barry McKenzie strip in Private Eye. Barry, an uncouth Australian who arrives for adventures in Britain, was our role model. We even went on a special pilgrimage to a Hampstead pub which – uniquely, we thought – stocked Foster’s, Barry’s favourite ‘ice-cold tubes’. By the time I became editor of this paper in 1984, the strip had long ceased. It was my ambition to recreate it in The Spectator’s pages, in the harsher climate of Thatcher’s Britain, with an older but not, I hoped, wiser Barry, still trying and failing to ‘feature’ (defined in the McKenzie Australian glossary as ‘feature, see under naughty’) with girls. Nick Garland, who drew the original masterwork, was already available, drawing our brilliant covers. He willingly assisted my courtship of his co-author, Barry Humphries (who died last week). Barry was charming. Several discussions ensued and we became friends.