Humphries to retire Dame Edna after summer stage tour

Dame Edna Everage, the Tony Award-winning drag act known for her purple hair and oversized rhinestone eyeglasses, will soon open her final stage show tour in Australia.

It comes 57 years after her debut.

Publicist Kerry O’Brien said today that Barry Humphries – the actor and satirist who created Australia’s self-proclaimed housewife-superstar – wants to take the farewell show Eat Pray Laugh! to Britain and New York after the two-month Australian tour that begins in June.

At 78, Humphries said the time had come to retire all his various alter egos from the stage.

Dame Edna was a staple of television and stage in Britain and Australia before Humphries won a Tony Award in 2000 for his Broadway show, Dame Edna, The Royal Tour.