Barry Humphries was a comedy’s artistic disrupter before the term was even invented. His comic creations – Dame Edna Everage, Sir Les Patterson and Sandy Stone – were all experiments in how far he could push a larger-than-life character comedically, each one as finely drawn as one of Barry's own prized artworks. Dame Edna, the Melbourne suburban housewife superstar with a garish taste in fashion began as a joke but soon morphed into a real-life megastar, rubbing shoulder pads with the world’s richest and most famous. Sir Les was the Australian Cultural Attaché (and Chairman of the Australian Cheese Board), a grotesque whose boozy indiscreet stories both appalled and delighted in equal measure. And Sandy Stone, “Australia’s most boring man”, tested his audience’s capacity for melancholic tedium to its limit.

Humphries was a comic genius whose talent was simply too big be confined to his native Australia. Though perhaps few would recognise him out of costume, his characters became world famous and his colossal, inventive talent marked him out as a genuine one-off.

In this special edition of Funny But Dead devoted solely to Barry Humphries, John Marley and Mark Wells assess the extraordinary work and career of Australia' greatest comedy star of all time.

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Tommy Cooper is regularly cited as every comedian’s favourite comedian. He had a unique act as bungling fez-wearing magician unable to perform tricks while appearing entirely undeterred, but this masked a master craftsman whose every chaotic mishap was meticulously planned. Cooper had only to walk onto a stage to make an audience laugh. He was an innately funny performer, a towering presence on the British comedy and variety scene for over three decades before his untimely death on a live television variety show in 1984. His legacy lives on today in regular reruns of his popular shows and documentaries charting his phenomenal success.

Foster Brooks established himself as “the best drunk act in America” in the late 1960’s with a performance made all the more extraordinary by Brooks’ status as a committed teetotaller. No one in American comedy gave a more convincing, or more hilarious, portrayal of extreme inebriation. Brooks found national fame after Dean Martin first showcased his work on network television and he became a semi-regular on the Hollywood celebrity roasts hosted by his champion. On British television, Brooks was introduced to the UK audience by his great fan, Bob Monkhouse.

John Marley and Mark Wells discuss the work of the peerless Tommy Cooper and the comedy of the great Foster Brooks.

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Spike Milligan was a force of nature in British comedy in the second half of the twentieth century – a comedian, writer, poet, musician and actor whose influence is still felt today. As one of the writers and stars of BBC Radio’s legendary The Goon Show in the 1950’s he was instrumental in creating a new kind of nonsensical comedy embracing both surrealism and silliness. His work with fellow Goons Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, along with his later solo television shows, are cited as key influences by the Monty Python team. Milligan was a mercurial character who gloried in outlandish, unpredictable humour loved by his army of devoted fans – which famously included King Charles III.

Garry Shandling was a comedian, writer and comic actor whose work dazzled both audiences and the American comedy community in the Eighties, Nineties and into the new century. After a stunning television debut with a stand up performance on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson in 1981 his finest work came a decade later as the creator and star of The Larry Sanders Show, a no-holds-barred takedown of the production process on a nightly talk show. Shandling was a complex man who never seemed truly at ease in the limelight, but the sheer quality of his work broke new ground for what would be possible in comedy for uninhibited cable networks and streamers in the years ahead.

John Marley and Mark Wells discuss their professional encounter with Spike Milligan and assess his contribution to British comedy and look back at the career and fine work of Garry Shandling.

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Frank Carson was one of Britain’s most distinctive comedians – a performer with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of jokes delivered at breakneck speed in his trademark Northern Irish accent. Carson’s catchphrase, “It’s the way I tell ‘em!”, accurately summed up his unique appeal to millions who came to love his quick fire, traditional style that he first brought to national prominence on the television series The Comedians in the 1970’s. In the decades that followed he was a near-permanent presence on television, never failing to win audiences over with his relentless routines which depended heavily on the quantity of gags as much as the quality.

Betty White was one of America’s favourite television comedy actresses whose career straddled seven decades, peaking with her acclaimed sitcom performances as Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls during the 1980’s and Sue Ann Nivens in The Mary Tyler Moore Show in the 1970’s. An apparently sweet, sunny disposition was the disarming cover for White’s slightly subversive sense of humour, deployed by Betty to brilliant effect in countless guest spots across the years. The sheer length of her television career earned Betty White a place in The Guinness Book of Records, a sure indication of the scale of the success enjoyed by this much-loved American national treasure.

John Marley and Mark Wells discuss their memories of working with Frank Carson and look back at his career, and asses the work of the legendary Betty White.

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Bruce Forsyth had a show on in primetime on British television every single year for an astonishing fifty nine years, the only entertainer to have achieved such remarkable longevity on the small screen. Without question one of the biggest stars in British show business of all time, Forsyth was the consummate all-round performer - a man who could sing, dance, play instruments, and tell jokes...and all to the very highest standard. The host of television shows like Bruce Forsyth's Generation Game, Play Your Cards Right and Sunday Night at the London Palladium, he showed himself to be particularly skilled at making regular people funny without impacting their dignity, and he had a first rate comic instinct. His talent was rewarded with massive TV ratings and huge popularity right up until his retirement in his eighties. The king of catchphrases, perhaps his best known one sums up his own career perfectly: Didn't he do well?!

Dean Martin was a towering presence in American entertainment, both literally and figuratively. A member of Frank Sinatra's celebrated Rat Pack, he was the louche, easy going crooner who seemed to be the very personification of the word 'cool'. As a comedic performer he enjoyed colossal success, firstly as one half of the comedy partnership he formed with Jerry Lewis which filled both theatres and movie houses to capacity, and then later as the star of NBC's weekly ratings hit The Dean Martin Show which he appeared to sail through on a wave of whisky and good cheer. Martin didn't have to try too hard to be funny. Generations of fans loved his apparent disregard for everything that was expected of him, and he appeared to revel in having the best time of anyone in the room.

Mark Wells and John Marley share their memories and knowledge of Bruce Forsyth and Dean Martin, and discuss some of their funniest work.

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Bob Monkhouse was a giant of British comedy, a performer whose career as Britain's leading game show host perhaps masked what an outstanding stand up comedian he was. A 'human Google' with an unrivalled and encyclopaedic knowledge of comedy, Monkhouse's tentative teenage steps into show business saw him writing jokes for the legendary Max Miller. Before long Monkhouse had formed a writing partnership with Denis Goodwin and together they became the most prolific writers in British radio comedy of the times. A career in front of the microphone and camera beckoned, and Bob Monkhouse never looked back. He became one of the biggest stars in Britain, and in the final decade of his life was regarded as the elder statesman of British comedy, revered and respected by younger comedians.

Robin Williams' comic genius was first widely seen in a 1978 guest spot on America's top rating sitcom Happy Days, and its spin off built around his talents Mork and Mindy. He was without question the most exciting comedy talent of his generation, his dazzling comic brain in seemingly endless overdrive as he riffed in freeform during extraordinary stand up routines and not-to-be-missed appearances on talk shows in both America and Britain. Movie superstardom was inevitable, with Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets' Society and Good Will Hunting and many other films establishing Williams as a major box office draw, but it is for his peerless comedic skills that he is discussed here, as Mark Wells and John Marley dive into - and enjoy - the comedy of Bob Monkhouse and Robin Williams.

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Kenneth Williams is perhaps best remembered for his work in the legendary Carry On movie series, but this superlative comic actor was also one of Britain's most gifted comedy raconteurs. Film fans will remember Williams' delivery of one of the funniest lines of all time in a British movie, uttered as he played Julius Caesar in Carry On Cleo - "Infamy, infamy! They've all got it infamy!". On television, stage and radio, Williams' memorable performances delighted audiences with their mix of faux outrage, camp, vocal gymnastics and the sheer delight in his own mastery of the English language. Leslie Neilsen was the Canadian-American comic actor who achieved breakout stardom as the lead in the Naked Gun movie series in the 1980s, based on his earlier work in the Police Squad! television comedies and his scene-stealing work in the hilarious Airplane!. A master of deadpan delivery, Neilsen had an unrivalled timing and deployed his method of playing comedy as if it were serious drama with extraordinary comic effect.

Mark Wells and John Marley deep dive into the careers of Williams and Neilsen, and recall enjoying some of their funniest and most memorable comedy.

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Ken Dodd - or 'Doddy', as he was almost universally known - was Britain's greatest stage comedian of the last hundred years. Over a six decade career he invited generations of British audiences into his surreal world of jam butty mines, Diddymen and sausage-knotters...and kept them there, at his theatre performances, for many hours in legendarily long shows. His style and way of working represented a direct link back from the 21st Century to Victorian music hall, and he remains revered by many other comedians to this day. Phil Silvers was a consummate comedy actor whose role playing the celebrated Sergeant Bilko on America's The Phil Silvers Show offered him an international platform on which to show off his astonishing comic skills. Widely regarded as one of America's greatest sitcom stars of all time, Silvers' genial mix of guile, quick wit and a likeable disposition earned him the sobriquet 'The King of Chutzpah'. His performance as Bilko is rightly acclaimed as a gold standard in sitcom, and the show's influence can still be seen in more modern comedies like Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Mark Wells and John Marley discuss the lives and work of these two towering legends of comedy entertainment, and assess what made them so special.

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