THE DESTINY OF ME.

Once upon a time in 1955, sitting at the back of a bus carrying an Australian repertory troupe around the province of Victoria, Barry Humphries, an aspiring twenty-one-year-old actor, began to improvise a character called Edna Everage, who was born out of tedium and a dandyish appetite for astonishment. Humphries had dropped out of the University of Melbourne but had already earned a place in antipodean cultural history for his outrageous collegiate escapades. On one occasion, he planted a roast chicken and a split of champagne in a garbage can at a bus stop; dressed as a tramp, he returned to root through the trash until he found his prize, which he ate in front of the ...