Adelaide statue of Barry
Late last year, Adelaide City Council (South Australia) commissioned a statue of Australia's iconic actor and comedian to be crafted by artist Robert Hannaford AM.
Independent Australia contributor Vince Hooper commented on the commission, saying it's a sign of 'cultural health' that:
'Soon, theatre-goers strolling past Her Majesty's Theatre in Adelaide – the very stage where Humphries made his theatrical debut as a 19-year-old in 1953 and later called his favourite theatre in the world – will encounter a new bronze statue in his honour.'
The Adelaide statue is an important commission, despite 'the budget debate' and assumption it will provoke outrage, says Hooper, because it's a reminder:
'... that satire, irreverence and the occasional moral discomfort are essential to cultural life.'
From an article dated 22 February 2026
Vincent Hooper, Spectator Australia (15.2.2026), writes (extract):
In December 2025, Adelaide City Council approved the $313,083 sculpture, to be crafted by celebrated South Australian artist Robert Hannaford AM. The price tag has sparked debate across council chambers, headlines, and social media threads.
For some, it is a frivolous extravagance; for others, a fitting tribute to a cultural provocateur whose legacy is both hilarious and uncomfortable.
One can almost hear Sir Les Patterson himself bellowing beneath it: ‘Finally! A bloody statue with enough room to park my ego!’
For the uninitiated, Patterson was Humphries’ most outrageous creation: a slobbering, tactless, endlessly self-assured cultural attaché whose qualifications seemed to include sexism, unfiltered appetite, and an uncanny ability to offend diplomats and the public alike. In today’s ‘Woke’ climate – where hashtags regulate morals and algorithms dispense outrage – he would be cancelled before finishing the first cork-soaked sentence.
Yet it is precisely this unpublishable audacity that made Patterson enduringly brilliant. Humour, particularly the uncomfortable kind, is a societal mirror. Through Sir Les, Humphries lampooned national ego, bureaucratic puffery, and moral posturing. He never asked us to admire the offensive behaviour; he demanded reflection through laughter. He took what was local – Australian manners, politics, and cultural cringe – and made it universal, exposing the absurdities all societies share.
Even internationally, Patterson’s grotesque diplomacy resonates. Every culture has its version of the blundering, blithering, self-important, spectacularly oblivious public figure, and every society benefits from laughter at their expense. Dame Edna Everage, Humphries’ other iconic creation, navigated progressive culture with charm and wit, proving that he understood both sides of human absurdity. Patterson, in contrast, forced us to confront the untidy, unsanitised, ungovernable aspects of our own societies – and to laugh at them.
The Adelaide statue itself becomes a metaphor: societies often undervalue culture and humour because they are uncomfortable or ‘unsafe’. Spending a few hundred thousand dollars on bronze may spark debate, but it costs far less than the cultural sterility created when we attempt to sanitise every joke, gag, or grotesque caricature. Money well spent!
