The most significant comedian since Chaplin?

He quoted Oscar Wilde saying that the mask tells more truth than the face.

Was he the shy, wide-eyed Melbourne boy who was an introvert; a sharp observer of the suffocating suburban trivia surrounding him?

One who was spoilt rotten and was brought up by his ever so unremarkable, lovely but (to him,) boring parents living in the even more boring affluent suburbia which he fictionally relocated to the daggy sounding Moonie Ponds in Melbourne, the epitome of utterly unimaginative, stifling suburban existence?

Was he a person feeling trapped in this oppressive world seeking relief from its tedium and looking for playfulness in drinking and drifting into a life of escapism from it all?

Was he looking for pain relief, forgetting and some fun through drinking himself to oblivion?

Did that macho, grog fuelled, 'sheila-whistler', gross pub-world, provide the experiential material for his Les Patterson character?

One who, like him as an alcoholic, liked to flirt with culture, but instead, degenerated into a pathetic caricature of himself?

And how did he manage to kick his addiction and instead, learn to kick the oppressive and pretentious world around him ever more sarcastically?

The shy, young Humphries dreaded the notion of ever becoming a member of the faceless, boring and average suburban establishment.

He could perhaps think of no greater sin than being bored and boring.

He observed the world of his mother; what happened to a potentially vibrant woman when she perhaps turned into just one of the many stultified housewives.

He said his mother was a frustrated artist and frustrated artists are very dangerous.