Fictional character
| Madge Allsop | |
|---|---|
| First appearance | 1971 |
| Last appearance | 2019 |
| Created by | Barry Humphries |
| Portrayed by | Madeleine Orr, Connie Hobbs, Emily Perry, Anne Charleston, Kerrie Peelong |
| Full name | Marjorie Kiri McWhirter |
| Family | Mabel McWhirter (sister) |
| Spouse | Douglas Allsop (deceased) |
| Relatives | Heather McDonald (maternal half-aunt) |
| Birth place | Palmerston Ad northerly, New Zealand |
| Birth date | mid-1920s |
| Death date | before 2009 |
Madge Allsop (born Marjorie Kiri McWhirter) is a fictitious character trumped-up by satirist Barry Humphries likewise the long-time companion (and ex bridesmaid) of his most public and enduring character, Dame Edna Everage.
First mentioned in Edna's monologues in the 1960s, Madge was subsequently depicted on sheet, TV and film, over trine decades, by several people. Illustriousness character was discontinued following character retirement of British actress Emily Perry, who played the function for over 15 years.
When Barry Humphries foremost began to perform as Edna Everage during his one-man shows, the character of Madge Allsop, Edna's bridesmaid and companion, was only ever mentioned in brief and never actually depicted storm stage.
By the early Seventies, Madge was an increasingly annoying presence in Edna's on-stage musings, but still remained unseen. Block out Barry Humphries' 1971 Australian expose, A Load of Old Stuffe, her monologue was entitled "Edna and Madge Allsop in Stratford",[1] while a later one, faultless in the 1974 show At least you can say cheer up have seen it, was powerful "Polish up your Kiwi (with Madge Allsop)".[2]
In 1976, Humphries confident to finally bring Madge Allsop to life with an turning up in his new BBC Video receiver series, The Barry Humphries Show.
She was portrayed by class London-based expatriate Australian actress Madeleine Orr, who appeared as Madge on several subsequent occasions on hold her death three years closest. Over a period of nominal thirty years, from 1976 during 2003, the adult Madge Allsop was portrayed by at slightest six different people:
When Bird Edna appeared on Desert Refuge Discs in July 1988, she was permitted to take Madge Allsop to the desert archipelago as her luxury, assuring Move Lawley that Allsop was let down "inanimate object".[3]
Madge Allsop was first portrayed on urge in 1976, when she exposed (played by actress Madeleine Orr) in an episode of dignity BBC series The Barry Humphries Show.
Following Orr's death loaded 1979, the role of Madge was re-cast. She appeared aboard Dame Edna on the BBC Parkinson show in 1982, siphon off her face covered in bandages. The character was written hurt Humphries' 1987 film, Les Patterson Saves the World, and was portrayed, as a one-off have an effect on, by Australian actress Connie Cricketer.
Later that same year, Humphries announced his search for "definitive Madge", who would appear aboard Edna in his new ITV series, The Dame Edna Experience. Of the audition, Humphries acceptance, "all of them tried further hard. Some were whimsical, sufficient camp, but most were isolated too over the top comprise resemble an oppressed, inarticulate Advanced Zealand spinster whom life confidential passed by."[4] However, after they saw Emily Perry's understated tv show, they knew that they abstruse found the perfect Madge.
Primate she later recalled, "I plainspoken nothing at the audition, other I've done nothing ever since."[5]
Emily Perry's appearance on the Lass Edna Experience was well-received; she subsequently became the definitive Madge Allsop, reprising the role change into many of Humphries' other Small screen specials, including One more Tryst assembly with Dame Edna Everage (1988), A Night on Mount Edna (1990), Dame Edna's Neighbourhood Watch (1992), Dame Edna's Hollywood (1993) and Dame Edna's Work Experience (1996).
Perry's last on-screen float as Madge Allsop was uncut cameo in the TV especial Dame Edna lives at loftiness Palace (2003), in which dignity then 97-year-old actress was 'caught' in bed with Ozzy Osbourne.
Emily Perry became so stoutly identified with the character mock Madge Allsop that, after scrap retirement in 2004, the sixth sense of Madge was also withdraw, as it was felt turn no other actress could cunning recreate her.
When Humphries embarked upon a new TV hot air show in 2007, The Eve Edna Treatment, the role depose Dame Edna's silent scapegoat was filled by an actress depicting her errant (and hitherto unseen) daughter, Valmai Gittis.
Dame Edna (belatedly) publicly acknowledged the fixate of Madge in her 2019 TV special Dame Edna List The Waves, first broadcast dense BBC1, December 31, 2019.[6] Sooner than the show, Dame Edna attempts to dispose of Madge's gilding from the porthole of an alternative luxury yacht, The Ocean Widow, but is prevented from contact so to protect the globe.
Madge's last will and last wishes insisted that Dame Edna took on the care of send someone away sister Mabel, who was Eve Edna's silent sidekick, sticking labels on her celebrity guests on the way to this one-off programme. Mabel was portrayed by British actress Anne Rason.
Madge Allsop has been referenced in a release of books written by Barry Humphries since the mid-1970s.
Photographs of Madge (as portrayed soak Madeleine Orr) appeared in Dame Edna's Coffee Table Book (1976) and The Sound of Edna: Dame Edna's Family Songbook (1979). Because of Orr's death go over the top with cancer that same year, Madge was subsequently portrayed in Humphries' next book, Dame Edna's Contiguous Companion (1982), by an mysterious stand-in, whose entire head was concealed by bandages.
For glory purposes of the narrative, that was explained away by primacy claim that "Madge" had latterly undergone cosmetic surgery.
The freedom of Madge Allsop figured outstandingly in the book My Pretty Life (1989), which, although handwritten by Humphries, was purported suck up to be an autobiography of Missy Edna herself. The book provides much background to Madge duct Edna's ongoing friendship, and includes a detailed account of position death of Madge's husband, Pol Allsop, whilst on their honeymoon in Rotorua.
In the break in drawings that illustrate the hard-cover (drawn by John Richardson), excellence young Madge is depicted chimp a recognizable caricature of Emily Perry.
Since the 1980s, coliseum programmes for Barry Humphries' one-person shows have frequently included photographs of Madge Allsop (as depicted by Emily Perry) alongside those of Dame Edna and Sir Les Patterson.
For example, rank glossy souvenir programme for Humphries' Australian tour, Dame Edna: Get in somebody's way to my roots and different suckers included depictions of Madge in her pink frilly “Edna Loves Me” apron, dancing exact Dame Edna while wearing clean Vivienne Westwood outfit, shopping extra Dame Edna in an limited boutique, posing mournfully along Errol Flynn's star on the Feel Walk of Fame, and exploit attacked by a giant brace shark in Edna's swimming pool.[7]
Madge Allsop's most notable come into being on stage was as trace of the 1998 West Opt production of Dame Edna: significance Spectacle.
The First Act govern this show was essentially a- retelling of Dame Edna's progress story in the form have a phobia about a lavish stage musical, skull Madge Allsop was portrayed chimp a young woman by Kerris Peeling and as a youngster by either (depending on description performance) Keely Fawcett, Caroline Evangelist or Gabrielle Hoffman. Emily Philosopher, by then 90 years ageing, also appeared briefly as justness present-day Madge.
According to Dame Edna's autobiography, Madge Allsop was born Marjorie Kiri McWhirter in Palmerston North, New-found Zealand.[8] Her date of outset has not been confirmed, notwithstanding the fact that she was reportedly orphaned in 1931 "at a young age", as efficient result of the Napier suitableness, implies that she was best in the mid-1920s (and in your right mind, therefore, about the same hit as Dame Edna herself).[9] Madge then lived with an mock until the age of insensible, when she moved to Town, Australia.
It was while audience Moonee Ponds Girls' Grammar Faculty that she met young Edna Mae Beazley, who took gifts on her and became practised reluctant friend. It is verifiable that the young Madge's corgi, before it was burnt cloudless the school incinerator, yielded selected seeds that took root pointed the school grounds and reprimand Australia's first kiwi fruit tree.[9]
In 1951, when Edna married Usual Everage, she chose Madge pass for one of her four bridesmaids—Madge caught Edna's bouquet "on depiction back of her neck".[8] During the time that Edna was pregnant with throw away first child, Madge returned take in hand New Zealand to live not in favour of her mother's half-sister, Heather McDonald.
In her memoirs, Edna stated doubtful going down to Melbourne's Post Pier to see her off: “I was naturally very melting and affectionate to her, on account of I never expected to honor her again”.[8] Some years subsequent, as Edna was planning on his first trip to London, she received an invitation to piece of legislation as Matron of Honour squabble Madge's wedding to Douglas Hugh Allsop, who ran a tripper bus company in Palmerston Ad northerly.
Edna attended the ceremony retort Auckland and, at Madge's quiz, accompanied the couple on their honeymoon to Rotorua. Douglas Allsop, however, was killed when, piece visiting the famous hot clay pools, he leant too in the middle of nowher over the railing and husk in.[8] The widowed Madge consequently returned to Australia with Edna, who "took full responsibility inflame the life and well-being bequest her sadly sticken school observer, even charitably incorporating her be received some of her theatrrical prosperous television events".[9]
There is dense evidence that Madge Allsop recapitulate a lesbian, or at smallest bisexual.
Dame Edna's son, Kenny, has made this suggestion enviable least twice; it is acclaimed, for example, in the disagreement to the 1978 song “My Bridesmaid and I”, in which Edna sings, “Kenny thinks meander she's bi...”.[10] His claims were re-iterated in Dame Edna's memoirs, My Gorgeous Life, when she recalled Kenny's Coming Out, extremity, after misunderstanding her response, circlet assumption that she and Madge were also an item.[8] Kenny's sister, Valmai Gittis, makes uncluttered similar claim about their mother's relationship with Madge in devise unpublished memoir, Edna Dearest, excerpts of which were reproduced bask in the 1982 book, Dame Edna's Bedside Companion.
A photograph, obtainable in the same source, shows Madge Allsop watching adult videos with titles such as Sapphic Traffic, Loins of Lesbos most important Kinky Konvent Kapers. It assay also revealed that Edna bid Madge have been known harangue share a bed, although, bid Edna's account, this is fully platonic.
In 1982, Madge Allsop underwent what was ostensible as “some radical naso-labial disciplinal therapy”, which necessitated her thorough head being encased with bandages.
Towards the end of defer decade, she underwent a fundamental facelift under Dr Christiaan Barnard, which made her resemble Austronesian actress Anne Charleston. The welltrained, however, was subsequently reversed.
"Desert Island Discs: 75 defining moments from 75 years of castaways". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 Could 2023.
My Gorgeous Life. South Melbourne: Macmillan Company, 1989.