Flashbacks with Barry Humphries

I'm not a particularly big fan of Barry Humphries style of humour, so it was a surprise a few years ago when I found the documentary he did for the ABC called 'Flashbacks' hilarious.

Basically it's a look back at Australian society in four parts (1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s) through news, TV and film footage plus the comments of Humphries in various guises (Dame Edna, Sir Les, Sandy Stone).

The footage from the 1960's and 1970s is especially hilarious and well-chosen, which manage to show how kitschy and cringe-worthy a lot of Australian culture actually is. My favourite bit - a segment from the 1970s when John Singleton's sincere comment 'Number 96' is the modern day equivalent to Shakespeare! There are some weaknesses - the 1980s segment is fairly uninspired. This is partly because Humpries fails to find much humour about many of the main characters of the era (Bob Hawke, Paul Keating, Alan Bond) and partly because culturally speaking the 1980s were a much less interesting one then the 1960s/1970s were. And Humphries' attempts at humour with his various characters are patchy at best - Sir Les is probably the funniest of his characters.

Overall, this is a very entertaining show well worth getting on DVD.