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Side-splitting comedian
With a career spanning almost 20 years as a star of stage, screen and the rainbow, Magda Szubanski has cemented herself a place in the public imagination with a side-splitting string of comic creations.
Magda Szubanski is one of Australia’s most versatile, critically acclaimed and popular comedy performers.
Both a talented writer and actor, Magda Szubanski is best known internationally for her role as Mrs Hoggett in the Academy Award and Golden Globe winning Babe and its sequel Babe : Pig in the City.
She starred in the 2002 release The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course alongside the late Steve Irwin and appeared in the family comedy, Son of the Mask. Magda Szubanski was a voice alongside Brittany Murphy and Robin Williams in the feature film Happy Feet.
Magda has twice been named the Most Popular Person on Television (in the years 2003 and 2004) and acknowledged with an extraordinary seven Logies, three Australian Writers’ Guild Awards, two People’s Choice Awards and an Australian Film Institute (AFI) Award for Best Actress.
Magda Szubanski plays the fleshy foil, Sharon, to the whinging Kim in the ABC hit series Kath & Kim. The popular TV sitcom has been widely acknowledged to be the most successful comedy in Australian television history and has successfully made the cultural leap to US and UK television via the cable networks Trio and Living, to critical acclaim (The Evening Standard – brilliant stuff; The Times – The parody of the language is brilliant”).
Magda created her Kath & Kim character, Sharon Strzelecki, in the 1995 sketch show Big Girl’s Blouse, which she co-wrote, co-produced and starred in with her Kath & Kim producers and co-stars Gina Riley and Jane Turner. The series was a cult hit and won critical acclaim.
Magda also worked with Gina and Jane on the 1998 comedy series Something Stupid, which she co-wrote, co-produced and starred in. The year 2000 saw the premiere of Dogwoman, a series of three murder mystery telefeatures which she once again co-wrote, co-produced and starred in as the eponymous dogwoman.
But it was back in 1989 that Magda first shot to television fame for her huge variety of comic characters and her gift for accents in the sketch comedy Fast Forward. It played for several years and was the highest-rating comedy in Australian television history at the time, becoming something of a national institution.
Magda made the transition from university revue to television comedy in the ABC TV’s D-Generation, which fostered some of Australia’s most successful entertainment talents and is considered a comedy classic.
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