458: Gay Television Producers

And so to add to the gay actors, gay choreographers, gay dancers, gay hair dressers, gay interior decorators, gay fashion designers, gay shop assistants, gay antique shop-owners, gay teachers, gay writers, gay civil servants, gay spies, and gay guardsmen, may I may present:

Gay TV producers

I suppose it’s just a further new modern arena in which gay men can be theatrical and temperamental. There was an early example in Victor Spinetti’s character in “A Hard Days Night” (1964).

“Private Eye” 3 January 1967

A couple of years on is this character by Barry Humphries in “The Adventures of Barry McKenzie”. Admittedly, in this instalment the presentation he’s introduced first as a gay man, and then is a TV producer later, so it’s not a smooth integration.

In most cases this appearance of a gay TV producer is not a matter of being a fully rounded character or even much of a joke. It’s really just a matter of throwing a brief of moment of comic colour into the environs of television production.

“Dawson and Friends”, 1977
Starts: 0.55 – 2.20

This Subsonic sketch is a parody of the ITV music programme, “Supersonic” and its presenter Mike Mansfield, here spoofed by Julian Orchard in a very floppy pink bow, with a very limp wrist and some “sweety”s and “dear”s. Manfield isn’t gay that I’m aware of, so this very broad camp portrayal is just an added extra. There’s a Lot of It About, 1982
20.58 – 21.20

“There’s a Lot of It About” was one of the later of Spike Milligan’s rather free-form sketch programmes. Some of the sketches in this series were also written by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, but I don’t think this is one of them. Spike Milligan rarely bothers with gay jokes, so for all that this just a very brief cameo it therefore stands out (although some of the characters portrayed by Peter Sellers in “The Goon Show” have a possible gay interpretation). In this sketch, a very broad camp caricature appears for a few seconds when a parody of the TV programme “Panorama” goes off the rail and comes to a technical halt. The part is played by Keith Smith who flounces on, addresses the crew in an enormously camp voice and with tremendously fluttering hands, then flounces off again. The picture quality is a little fuzzy, but it looks as though Smith is also distinguished by wearing a pair conspicuous purple shiny earrings.

“Punch”, 18 October 1978

Off the immediate topic of TV producers, but Smith’s ludicrous caricature me reminds a lot of this equally spurious, unrealistic and related-only-to-other-comic-stereotypes throwaway illustration according a humorous piece about “The A.A. Book of Minorities”.

405: Gay Bar 6: The Adventures of Barry McKenzie

The Adventures of Barry McKenzie (1972)

Unembeddable:
http://youtu.be/f5CZJGY3kQo
starts: 1.00
ends: 5.40

Directed by Bruce Beresford
Written by Barry Humphries and Bruce Beresford

Another film adaptation of a modern day Candide. In this case it’s the transfer to film of the Private Eye comic strip written by Barry Humphries and drawn by Nicholas Garland. The strip had two satirical targets: the drunken, boorish yet simultaneously priggish Australia left behind encapsulated in the character of Australian tourist Barry McKenzie and the venal, shabby, trendy, exploitative Britain he was visiting. Aside from actual satire, the strip was Humphries’s opportunity to introduce as many slang terms for sex, drinking, and vomiting. Because of this, and because it was perceived to denigrate Australians in the eyes of the world, the strip was banned by Australian censors and the notorious Australian customs board. As it had been running since the mid-1960s there’s an argument that the strip preempts many of the achievements of the American underground comix, but since it's unknown in America it falls beneath critics’ radar.

Most of the film is a fairly direct dramatisation of events, dialogue and characters in the strip. At one point Barry visits a former girlfriend only to discover that since moving to England she has become a butch lesbian with a similarly older butch girlfriend. Lesbians fall outside my remit, but in the film you’ll notice she’s a perfectly normal seeming young lady though the girlfriend is still an escapee from Radcliffe Hall. Barry and his ex then then go to visit a pub for further conversation. In the film version, more is made of it as being gay pub, and so it is that everyone in this pub is a drag queen.

Unlike the drag queens of four years earlier in “Candy” who were in modern dress and seemed relatively free and easy, these drag queens look more like doubles for Danny La Rue in some incredibly ostentatious evening gowns. Nothing else is made of them, although there is a brief appearance of a bitchy trollish bartender. They’re just a sight gag – a herd of men in frocks, to whose nature Barry is of course oblivious.

The second half of the scene in the toilet with the policeman is a direct dramatisation of the corresponding strip in “Private Eye” from November 1966, possibly one of the earliest instances of jokes about police entrapment of homosexuals in lavatories. However, his inevitable farcical transvestite turn makes more sense in the contexts of all these drag queens.

Two drag queens appeared singing the title sequence of “staircase” in 1969, a failure of a film with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison.

338: Fairy Tales 3 - Barry Humphries

from “Dame Edna's Bedside Companion” by Barry Humphries, 1982
Illutrations by Daniel Rainey

This is rather an in-joke for fans who are familiar with the history Barry Humphries has spun over the decades for Dame Edna Everage and her fictional family. There is of course the monstrous Edna centre stage, and everything we know about her family is learnt from her monologues: the comatose condition of her husband Norm, her dominated spinster bridesmaid Madge Allsop, and then there’s her son Kenneth. A regular part of the Dame Edna Everage act is her clueless recounting of Kenneth’s life, which her more clued up audience realises is full of revelations about the gay lifestyle he tries to keep hidden from her.

So this fairy story is written in the persona of Kenny as a sublimated wish fantasy about his relationship to his mother, whose clothes he designs, and his taste for leather – crashing the fashion gay cliché against the sexual gay.
It’s written throughout in a campy style with the reader expected to be in on the joke, both about the story’s parallels with his life and also the gay allusions.
There are lots of camp diminutives, some gay slang and polari which are taken literally: fairies and nelly old queens and others besides. So credit to Humphries for not simply bashing out a cheap joke, since he does work out a style and content. All this is also padded out with the knowing stuff about assorted gay icons from cinema. Whether this whole piece all goes on too long, flogging this particular horse is another matter.
Particularly telling is the final full-page illustration of Kenneth’s fnatsies – which is a fairly good represenetaion of what contemporary gay bar might offer in terms of men and styles.

93: Barry Humphries – “Brian Graham”

“Just a Show” 1968/1969

“Brian Graham, a neurotic young Sydney executive with a guilty secret, appeared in 1968 in Just a Show. I played the character in a blond wig, navy blue shorts -and long white socks, a ludicrous uniform which was so much in fashion at the time. that nobody thought it was funny. The scene was a modern office, desk, abstract painting, intercom and three telephones which actually rang.” – Barry Humphries notes in “A Nice Night’s Entertainment: Sketches and Monologues” (1981).

Woman's voice on intercom: 'Mr Graham, Mr Graham. Call from Sydney on the red phone. Call from Sydney on the red phone.' BRIAN Picks up the recover.

Thanks, Cathy, put them through darling.
Hello, Grahamco Fertilisers Brian Graham speaking. Can I help you? Hello there Mr Friedman, my father passed your letter on to me and I've just been chasing up the order. All I can say is that we've put you people on priority and we're pushing it as hard as we can. You people aren't the only ones unfortunately so I'd be very grateful if you'd bear with us for another ten days at the very most.
I perfectly realise that, Mr Friedman, but we're erecting a new superphosphate plant and a new sulphuric acid plant to cope with our future commitments so you'll appreciate. . - - Look leave it with me Mr Friedman will you?
Can do . . . I appreciate that.
Can do . . . I appreciate that. I fully appreciate that. . .
[He repjaces one receiver and Picks up another. ]
Give me my father will you Cathy?
Hello Dad? I've just had Friedman on the blower. He's getting a bit cheesed over the big Agralux order. I told him that, and I think I fobbed him off till after the weekend but he sounded a bit ratty. I think you better give him a bell on Monday, Dad. Look Dad, I can't possibly work back again tonight. I've been living in the office for the last fortnight finalising that big Queensland phosphate deal. If1 don't get in a game of squash and a steak sometime tonight I might as well move the cot in here. Give us a break will you Dad, don't be corny I haven't seen Pam for three weeks. I'm not even faintly interested in Pam,. look if you don't believe me or something you can come along to the squash courts with me and check up. Look get off my back will you Dad have you had the green light from Southern Cross Minerals? If they step up exploration in the N.T. we ought to be able to cut freight costs on double and triple super as well as water-soluble phosphorus pentOxide. Has the lab got any word on Henderson's soil test? Well we're producing a microfine lime with an average particle size of five microns so we ought to be able to cover a layer of root nodule bacteria and correct soil acidity up to a point. With the new anhydrous ammonia distributors we can treat approximately forty-five acres with a sixty-five hp tractor and if Henderson's won't buy that we can do them a more accurate soil test with the atomic absorption spectrophotometer but tell them it'll cost them for Christ's sake or they'll be screaming.
I have not got a female in the office. I told you I haven't seen Pam Cunningham for three weeks Daddo you have to keep niggling about that? I was in the office all night Tuesday. I called Mum. I was probably snatching a coffee when you rang so don't take it out on Mum. Now will you let me get on with it? Look I won't leave the office till I've squared Friedman so tell Mum I won't be in for tea. Look Dad, I'm over twenty-one for goodness sake I don't know when I'll be in I migl1t take in a movie.
[He holds the receiver at arm's length.]
Look Dad. . . if you don't calm down you'll give yourself another coronary. Just give me Friedman's home number. Cathy hasn't got it Dad, if you remember you tore her phone book in half yesterday proving your strength in front of that guy from IC!. What is it? [Writing] Fair enough. OK Dad. Bye for now.
Cathy, get me Mrs Drew Farell will you sweetie?
Hello Josie how are we love? Is your bloke in? Where is he, down
having a few with the boys? I'd watch that one if! were you. Is that that gorgeous infant of yours I can hear in the background? Put him on to me will you sweetie? That you Bennie boy what you do at school today kiddo? Fabulous. What she say' What she do to my Bennie boy? Well you tell Miss Elliott your big mate Brian will be up 'there after her with a big stick if she bullies you any more.
I'm coming up on Sunday Bennie we'll kick a ball around. OK handsome, for sure, be good.
Josie? Isn't he just too dolly? Listen, I'll make it on Saturday.
I'll drive up early. The old man's in the usual tizz down here, I'll come up and cry on your shoulder, listen sweet, do you want anything brought up from the big smoke? Sure? Tell that lovely he-man of yours Roger let me have a case of Sea view Cabernet sixty-three. Ought to go nicely with that tired old avocado salad. I'll bring up a few bottles as a little prezzie'. Big deal eh?
Oh Josie, you remember that b40ke who was just leaving when I arrived the other Sunday, no the quiet one not the architect. Was he a bit gay? No no just wondered that's all. You know me old sticky beak. OK sweetie. Oh sweetie there might be two of us will that be OK? No one you know, he's an old mate of mine from way back in the travel business just down from Honkers. I think you'll like him. Righto back to your chores. Bye now.
[He hangs up, pauses, then slowly dials again.]
Hello.
Is that Adele Model Gowns? Could I speak to Mr Hatcher, no
Mr Hatcher junior. Mr Graham calling.
[He whistles a cabaret tune.]
Hello Mr Hatcher . . . It's Gloria here.

Well what about you last night! I bet you don't remember. You were well away by the time Vera arrived. Suckin' away at the old gin bottle - what sort of a hostess are you? And who was butterbox - who brought her? Where'd you dig him up from? Sydney eh, big deal. No I don't mean that matelot, had that years ago darling, I mean the number in the nursery curtains and the Minnie Mouse shoes. You 'should have seen her eyes when Trixie did her dreary old Judy Garland bit in her mother's tired old halter-neck silver lame fish tail. If that bitch trots that old number out again she's not coming to my next forties nostalgia party and that's for sure. And I'll tell you another charming little number I'll be scratching off the list: that bit of rough trade from Cyprus with the taxi, don't want Lil arriving.
Did you get those tickets for Marlene ? You got comps? Get you! What you have to do for that? When for? Of pooh, I told you I was probably going down the country this weekend. Josie and Drew's place. Andrew Fatell and his wife. He's not so Bessie Boring dads, he's always sending us up but I think it's a bit of your old still waters there, methinks he protests a bit too much that one - glass houses and all that jazz.
Josie's all right, she's brilliant. Well, yes, she is a bit of a drear I suppose but their house is camp in a fifties kind of way: split level, Grant Featherston chairs, stinky little Dickerson orphan - the full rubbed pine bit. I only go up there for the hoot.
[The phone rings.]
Hold on.
Hello Grahamco Fertilisers Brian Graham speaking. Oh. Dad.
I'm up to my eyes here.
I'll have to go I've got the old cockroach on the line. See you at the sauna at half past eight. You can give us a squeeze with your eyes.
Yes Dad, sorry I've been on the blower to Friedman again about that multigrade limestone order. Look I'll be in for dinner tomorrow night, Dad. Well why does Mum have to carry on like that? I didn't know she was having someone else to dinner. Look I've met Isobel, she's a drag. . . she's a bore. Just leave me alone, can't you? I can't help it if you were married at nineteen, I'm not you! Listen can you hear me, there's no one else in this office.
I'm alone.
[He slams down phone. Buries. head in hands. Another phone rings. And rings.]

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Barry Humphries built his career in the late 50s and 60s out of satirical monologues. He exposed the fatuousness and clichés of vast swathes of Australian society. He began by caricaturing the older Australian suburban generation of his relations, with his Moonee Ponds housewife Edna Everage and his hum-drum nostalgic Sandy Stone. He then turned to his own contemporaries, mocking the laddish surfers, self-satisfied beatniks and trendy media-operators. Brian Graham was a character performed in Humphries’s 1968 tour across Australia and then in London in 1969.
The frustrations of Brian Graham must therefore have presented themselves as some new stereotype to Humphries.
If you want to be a little high-toned and critical, one could point out that Brian Graham is himself three different performances:
1 – the dutiful son as businessman, presenting a cracking façade to his family
2 – the genial fag to his off-screen hag
3 – the camp poisonous bitch
Which is the real Brian Graham? Does even he know?
Whether Humphries was in anyway influenced by “The Boys in the Band” (performed in early 1968) I can’t tell. But the character is certainly similar to those.