Starve the lizards!

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33189, 31 March 1973, Page 14

Starve the lizards!

Barrington McKenzie, known to his old friends from the Moonee Valley Sunday School in Victoria as ” Bazza ", emerged as a comic strip character in the English satirical magazine, “ Private Eye . He was an instant success. His broad-brimmed hat, doublebreasted suit, rich language, and oddly coy morality cantured—with only a little exaggeration—the manner and appearance of many a young Australian male in search of excitement among the “ Poms ’’ of Earls Court in London’s West End. Bazza became a cult: two books of his adventures have found a ready audience, even in New Zealand. Compared with the more recent film of his adventures the comic strip doings are, indeed, bawdy. But it is the film which has been banned here. In New South Wales the film has an “R ” certificate from a censor not particularly notable for his liberalism. This means that children between the ages of six and 18 will not be admitted. It is a picaresque saga of an innocent abroad, with a cast which includes the original creator of the series, Barry Humphries, as well as Peter Cook, Spike Milligan, and Dick Bentley. The humour would best be described as “ clever schoolboy ”. The most distasteful episode involves a spectacular “ chunder ’’ or “ technicolour yawn ”, to use Bazza's own colourful language. Even this has achieved a certain literary respectabilib The first volume of the new supplement to the complete “ Oxford English Dictionary ”, which includes the letters A to G. has not only found room for the word “ chunder ”, but has quoted the Barry McKenzie strip to show its use. ” The Adventures of Barry McKenzie ” might not be everyone's cup of tea (or can of cold Foster’s); it offers more humour and entertainment than some pretentious and sexually explicit Continental films which have been shown in New Zealand. Perhaps on anpeal the censor’s decision will be changed, for adult audiences at least. The theme song from the film might well carry a message for its critics when it remarks of those who stand in the way of the exuberant Bazza; It’s no good mate; you’ll never win. He’s a better man than you are, Gunga Din.