Historic Australian comedian Barry Humphries’ has had his name stripped from Melbourne comedy festival’s largest award following controversial transgender comments.
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival awards the most outstanding show ‘the Barry Award’, named after Mr Humphries in 2000, but have now renamed the award when the comedian came under fire for saying that being transgender is “a fashion”.
Famous for his iconic Dame Edna Everage character, Humphries said in an interview last year, “How many different kinds of lavatory can you have? And it’s pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers”.
Festival director Susan Provan mentioned the festival were considering the name change for a while, saying, “[they] are just moving with the times. We want our big important award to be named for us, for our festival, for our city”.