Sir Les Patterson
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Sir Les Patterson is a fictional character portrayed by the Australian comedian Barry Humphries. Supposedly Chairman of the Australian Cheese Board, Minister for the "Yarts" (arts), or more recently Minister for Sport with special responsibility to keep sports rampantly heterosexual and "blokey", he used to hold the post of Australia's cultural attaché to Britain.
He is Dame Edna Everage's exact opposite: she is female, refined, Protestant, and from Melbourne; he is male, uncouth, Catholic, and from Sydney (Although he often claims to have attended Xavier College, a prestigious Melbourne Catholic school). A farting, belching, nose-picking figure of Dionysiac or Rabelaisian excess who is partly based on Humphries' earlier creation Bazza McKenzie, he allows Humphries to satirize Australia and its culture.
Sir Les, as he is fondly known, was awarded the Douglas Wilkie Medal for doing the least for football in the best and fairest manner, in 1986. His dislike for the game of Australian Rules Football was illustrated when he coated a leather football in cream cake, and fed it to a camel.
Sir Les Patterson does a fine line in racially-themed humour which does little to improve the image of Australians among their Pacific rim neighbours. He likes to talk about his trips to Bangkok "rub and tug shops". In one sketch he wants to find a whore house in Thailand so and he needs directions so he remarks, "When you got the urge - ask the concierge! So I says to the little slit-eyed yeller bastard..." Sir Les perperuates Australian prejudices by saying that the best place to hide something from a Pom is under a bar of soap. He also he resents Aussies having died, "stopping a bullet for the Pommy Empire." Sir Les states that he is of Irish descent.
Sir Les Patterson was awarded an honourary doctorate of letters by Cambridge Union (a debating society) in a spoof ceremony. This caused great angst amongst Cambridge dons who were worried that the general public might mistakenly believe that Cambridge University had awarded the gong to Sir Les. Of course the Cambridge Union is not entitled to award honourary degrees in any case.
In 2000, a portrait of Barry Humphries as Sir Les Patterson by painter Bill Leak won the Packing Room award at the Archibald Prize.
Filmography
Sir Les Patterson Saves the World (1987)
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