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Goodbye Possums! Dame Edna Quits The Stage

The sarcastic Melbourne housewife played Australian comedian Barry Humphries retires after a lifetime showbusiness.

Dame Edna Everage, purple-rinsed Melbourne housewife, is hanging up her and retiring from stage after more than half century in showbusiness.

Currently a farewell tour in Australia, the 78-year-old - famous for put-downs and inflated ego - has decided to her final bow.

"I can't go doing it," Dame Edna told a news conference before show in Sydney.

"I have other activities, I have my books, my charities are growing.

"The Prostrate Olympics are coming ."

Dame Edna's creator, Barry Humphries, first performed character in 1955.

She has appeared stage during theatrical tours of Europe, the US and the Middle East.

Humphries won a special Tony Award his 2000 Broadway offering Dame Edna, The Royal Tour and a Tony nomination in 2004 Back With A Vengeance.

With outrageous outfits and oversized horn-rimmed glasses, Dame Edna became a cult figure - and of Australia's most successful entertainment exports.

Appearing regularly on television the globe Humphries won the Golden Rose of Montreux in 1991. She hosted a number of successful TV shows the UK.

Dame Edna is of a number of Humphries' characters will no longer perform. He will also retire likes of obnoxious, inebriated cultural attache, Sir Les Patterson.

In Dame Edna's final show, has just got under in Australia, Dame Edna promises to "empower" audiences as she meditates the big issues of gender, ethnicity and climate change.

She has been afraid to shock either, particularly cutting about Australia's first female prime minister, Julia Gillard, is struggling in the polls.

Asked by a journalist what advice she had the PM, Dame Edna said: "Retirement, retirement darling, she was great other things before she was prime minister, but prime minister?

"No, and we not want to have a leader of the country who makes us cringe every she appears public."

Dame Edna plans to farewell to UK audiences in coming months, noting the Queen's recent jubilee celebrations the timing perfect.

"The Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee, and I'm to celebrate my diamante jubilee!"


Adapted from: Sky News, July 8, 2012.