My Life as Me: a memoir by Barry Humphries

To write one autobiography is pardonable; to write two begins to look like self-indulgence. Yet such vanity and excess are exactly what you'd expect from Barry Humphries, inventor of wonderful grotesques such as Dame Edna Everage, the gladioli queen, and Les Patterson, the disgusting Australian cultural envoy.

About a decade ago, Humphries had his first stab at autobiography. Planning a two- volume work, he wrote a book which took the story up to the end of the 1960s. To his horror, his publisher told him it had already been advertised as a memoir "up to the present day – it's even printed on the dust jacket". He gave Humphries two weeks to complete the task. The result was that More Please accelerated breathlessly in its final chapters.

Humphries' second attempt is a more leisurely stroll through the livid landscape of his career. "Most of my life I have been convalescing from the long illness of youth," he begins, and takes us by the hand to that distant world of suburban life in Melbourne in the 1930s and 1940s. His parents called him Sunny Sam, and at first everything is rosy in the garden. But gradually the weeds of boredom and convention get their tentacles around young Bazza, who rebels by becoming artistic – anathema to his blinkered folks. Despite their affluence, they distrusted art. When he was nine, his mum gave all his books to the Sally Army, cheerfully saying: "But you've read them, Barry."

Humphries responded by becoming a voracious reader, a browser of bookshops, a painter, a theatre fan and a surrealist. Dressing up in a black cloak, black homburg and mascara'd eyes, he became his first incarnation: Dr Aaron Azimuth, dandy and Dadaist. Yet despite his student pranks, Barry is haunted by the voice of his mum, whose best lines – "Stop drawing attention to yourself" and "You used to be so nice" – echo down the years.

Soon Humphries escapes to the bright lights of Sydney, and his theatre career takes off. In a twinkle of a possum's tail, Les Patterson, Sandy Stone and Dame Edna appear. It's not long before they conquer the world. Amusing anecdotes about Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, John Betjeman and Stephen Spender illustrate the sunny side of success. Cruel details about divorce and drunkenness are the clouds which cross the horizon.

Yet Humphries treats his unhappiness with a very light touch. After a while, he's a bit of a tease. As he promises to reveal some secret, one buttock perches on the psychiatrist's couch, then – quick as a farter leaving church – he's up and on his bar stool again, regaling his fans with stories. Many are good fun, but even the best showbiz stories get tedious after a while.

This autobiography is elegantly written, cool and stylish. But despite its memorable scenes, the real Barry is as evasive as his stage persona is over the top. We get hints of distress and darkness, alcoholism and obsession, without ever really understanding where all this comes from. If, behind his quizzical smile, Humphries knows what really makes him tick, he sure as hell isn't telling.