{"id":905516,"date":"2026-09-25T23:20:31","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T23:20:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905516\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T23:20:31","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T23:20:31","slug":"magda-szubanski-opens-up-about-healing-humour-and-the-power-of-an-unhistoric-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/905516\/","title":{"rendered":"Magda Szubanski opens up about healing, humour \u2013 and the power of \u201can unhistoric woman\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This story is part of the September 26 edition of Good Weekend. See all stories.<\/a><\/p>\n

For four decades, Magda Szubanski has made us laugh. She\u2019s as much a public figure, whose various comedic facets range from the purse-lipped Chenille, the chain-smoking Lynne Postlethwaite or the forlorn Sharon Strzelecki, as she is a familiar and beloved extension of our collective family.<\/p>\n

But the very funny world of Magda Szubanski became very serious on May 5, 2025. \u201cI remember the date, I\u2019ll never forget it,\u201d Szubanski says. \u201cI know this sounds bizarre, but I felt relief because I had been so unwell. I think I was in a state of shock for about two months. I cried, also. I was just all over the place emotionally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Less than a month later, she went public with her diagnosis of a rare, aggressive blood cancer<\/a>. \u201cI won\u2019t sugar-coat it: it\u2019s rough,\u201d she wrote at the time. \u201cBut I\u2019m hopeful. I\u2019m being lovingly cared for by friends and family, my medical team is brilliant, and I\u2019ve never felt more held by the people around me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flash forward to the present and Szubanski, 65, is in \u201cdeep remission\u201d<\/a>, has a new book, I Can\u2019t Tell You But I Will, coming out and sits down to speak to Good Weekend with an enthusiasm and ebullience which is familiar to us all. She\u2019s here and pulling no punches.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Opposite:<\/a><\/p>\n

The public response to the diagnosis was, in many ways, testament to the significance of the contribution she has made to our cultural lives. There was genuine affection for her, and genuine shock to see a woman synonymous with laughter face the quiet gravity of mortality.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am so touched by it,\u201d Szubanski says of the reaction. \u201cIt\u2019s such a precious, beautiful thing. I don\u2019t understand it fully. I don\u2019t know why. Why me? I don\u2019t really know. I don\u2019t think you can ever. No one\u2019s ever managed to figure out what that thing is. Part of it is just hanging around long enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s strange in a lot of ways because, really, I wasn\u2019t born here. Look at my name. But that is so Australian, isn\u2019t it? And it moves me really deeply. The response was like this tsunami of love. And I swear to god, I think that helped me. I really do. People were so lovely.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter I had completed the chemo and I was up in Sydney, this tradie guy comes up, and says, \u2018Just checking, you all right?\u2019 Yep. \u2018Good, good.\u2019 Things like that give me goosebumps now, that people would care. And it makes me want to cry. It does make me cry, doesn\u2019t it, clearly?<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you explain it,\u201d she says, wiping away tears. \u201cIt\u2019s such an extraordinary feeling to be on the receiving end of that. It really is. And I\u2019m very grateful. I don\u2019t know why. I don\u2019t know why me. I don\u2019t know what it is I do. But boy, am I thankful for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MagdaMagda Szubanski was given her diagnosis in May last year: \u201cI know this sounds bizarre, but I felt relief because I had been so unwell.\u201dDarren James<\/p>\n

In part, perhaps, our shared adoration stems from exactly that: that Szubanski is neither prophet nor politician. In her novel Middlemarch, author George Eliot wrote that the world was \u201cpartly dependent on unhistoric acts\u201d, a literary genuflection to the quiet labours of those whose efforts, or sometimes mere presence, makes it easier for the rest of us.<\/p>\n

Szubanski leaned into the same idea in the foreword of her new book, with a dedication to her mother Margaret, whom she describes as \u201can unhistoric woman\u201d. But in truth, the same could apply to Szubanski herself, a woman whose contribution to the national sense of humour has kept many of us smiling for most of our lives.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lives are a bit easier because of all those unhistoric men and women,\u201d Szubanski says. \u201cMum was one of them, just a simple but extremely complex Scottish working-class lassie. She\u2019d be 102 now if she was alive. I love to be able to acknowledge those people who don\u2019t normally get credited, but who really shape so much of life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a way, too, Szubanski\u2019s most famous fictitious avatar \u2013 Sharon Strzelecki, the deeply put-upon, almost cripplingly lonely second-best friend to spoilt princess Kim Craig (n\u00e9e Day) in Kath & Kim<\/a> \u2013 is the greatest expression of that idea. Her enthusiasm is boundless and she yearns to belong, but belonging seems to elude her. She\u2019s all of us, in the myriad ways we try and never quite feel like we fit.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s the spirit of thankless volunteerism,\u201d Szubanski says, of the character, created when she was playing baseball and realised so many people who kept the machinery going \u2013 umpires, coaches, captains and field workers \u2013 were unpaid. \u201cThey keep the wheels turning, these people; they\u2019re so important for society and for community,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\"SzubanskiSzubanski (at right, as Sharon) with the cast of Kath & Kim.<\/p>\n

The story of Magdalene Mary Therese Szubanski seems quintessentially Australian. Like many of us, her family came from somewhere else (she was born in Liverpool, England). And she grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne at a dinner table with a World War II Polish resistance fighter and an Irish and Scottish stoic. Family meal times? Complicated, she says, smiling.<\/p>\n

Both of Szubanski\u2019s parents were affected by war: her mother\u2019s father \u201cwas a very funny, extremely traumatised man, horrendously so. By the time he was 16, he\u2019d lost 10 brothers and sisters to poverty, and his father. And then he ended up at the Somme and Passchendaele in the First World War, where a lot of Australians were.\u201d<\/p>\n

As an adult, Szubanski came to understand her parents\u2019 often hidden frailties. \u201cBetween [Mum\u2019s] father, my father, and her own traumas, I think she tried to transcend her damage,\u201d Szubanski says of Margaret. \u201cShe had that courage that she could look at her faults and flaws in a way with an honesty that I really admire, that not many people can, but she just couldn\u2019t get the trajectory to get out of it because they didn\u2019t have the tools.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo growing up was a combination of fighting and hilarity and warmth and some cruelty thrown in there, too, and harshness and a lot of love, but just all of that. It was not straightforward. People parent very, very differently now. But also, poor bloody Mum, she got here and not a year later, my father was diagnosed with a very, very serious cancer. So she had a lot to deal with \u2013 they both did.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the tender age of 11, the future echo of Sharon Strzelecki was already emerging. Szubanski was a talented junior tennis player and competed in the Victorian School Boys and School Girls Championships at Kooyong. It was there that she met another competitor, Margaret Cecilia Louise \u2013 or Marg \u2013 Downey. \u201cWe met and we just clicked, we absolutely clicked,\u201d Szubanski says.<\/p>\n

They drifted in and out of contact and then reconnected at the University of Melbourne. \u201cBut by then, I was a radical lesbian feminist working in a women\u2019s refuge, and she was at the Catholic college [and wearing] Laura Ashley.\u201d Still, the foundation stones were laid for a friendship that has carried them throughout their lives. The gift with purchase for the rest of us: a string of critically acclaimed, fan-adored comedy masterpiece collaborations, including The D-Generation, Fast Forward, Big Girl\u2019s Blouse and Kath & Kim.<\/p>\n

I met Szubanski and Downey for the first time \u2013 along with their future Kath & Kim co-stars Jane Turner and Gina Riley \u2013 on the set of Fast Forward in the 1990s. That show was artistically significant not only because it popularised a number of Szubanski\u2019s most memorable characters, including serial complainer Lynne Postlethwaite (imported from The D-Generation), ditzy sports reporter Pixie-Anne Wheatley and, with Downey, Chenille and Janelle, the hosts of an over-the-top morning TV advertorial show.<\/p>\n

\"D-Generation:D-Generation: Marg Downey and Magda Szubanski with, from left, Santo Cilauro, Rob Sitch, John Harrison and Michael Veitch, 1987.ABC<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a star in the making,\u201d Downey says of Szubanski in that period, when Australian comedy was undergoing a bold transformation. The D-Generation itself paved a path for everyone from Rob Sitch, Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Michael Veitch and, later on radio, Jane Kennedy. And as part of the group drifted into Fast Forward, the others evolved into The Late Show, the production company Working Dog, and a range of projects from Frontline to the film The Dish.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just got each other\u2019s humour,\u201d says Downey of her friendship with Szubanski. \u201cWe could bounce off one another and we just started writing a lot of sketches together and performing them. We were from very different worlds, to be honest. In a funny kind of way, we were an odd couple, and to this day we\u2019re a bit of an odd couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2006, Szubanski ventured onto the stage as William Barf\u00e9e in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of the hit Broadway musical, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. The production starred Marina Prior, Tyler Coppin and David Campbell. Szubanski\u2019s casting was bold \u2013 the role had always been played by men. The production also introduced Szubanski to Campbell, a pop and jazz recording artist who cut a swathe through musical theatre on his way to becoming a television host. Szubanski had expected him to be a \u201crock \u2018n\u2019 roll kind of guy\u201d, but was immediately charmed by his easy manner. \u201cHe\u2019s also soulful and funny and warm and loving, and he\u2019s just a great guy,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Later, when Szubanski saw Campbell talking to British stage actor Lisa Hewitt, she decided to play matchmaker. \u201cShe was completely involved in making this happen,\u201d Lisa \u2013 now Lisa Campbell \u2013 says. \u201cWhen I returned to the UK, and said [a long-term relationship] is unrealistic, she said, \u2018This is special, you need to fight for it.\u2019\u2006\u201d<\/p>\n

Campbell and Hewitt married in 2008 \u2013 Szubanski was a bridesmaid \u2013 and the couple have three children, Leo, now 16, and twins Billy and Betty, now 11. Szubanski is Betty\u2019s godmother; a very powerful relationship, the couple say.<\/p>\n

Magda has \u201ca beautiful, maternal\u201d response whenever kids talk about an achievement, Lisa says. \u201cMagda will always say how proud she is of that achievement but reminds them that she loves them without it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is also the heart of why Szubanski is so universally beloved. \u201cMagda makes us laugh at ourselves and her at the same time,\u201d David Campbell says. \u201cIt was never that she was the butt of a joke. We were all the joke. And that\u2019s a very Australian way of doing comedy. Then, after a while, the caricatures, like Kath and Kim, become real. And now there\u2019s a generation of people who speak like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

At about the same time, Szubanski shifted into the realm of soft politics, becoming the face of the campaign for same-sex marriage. A 2017 national postal survey gauging support returned a result of 61.6 per cent of voters in favour of marriage equality and in December the same year, the Marriage Act was amended to allow it. But the campaign was divisive. And, at times, it seemed like Szubanski shouldered more than her fair share of the effort. \u201cYou become like an avatar,\u201d she says. \u201cYou\u2019re speaking on behalf of a group of people who don\u2019t have a voice, or aren\u2019t heard, or they can\u2019t express themselves. So it was nerve-wracking.<\/p>\n

\"BillBill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek watch as Magda Szubanski embraces Senator Penny Wong after the vote on the Marriage Amendment Bill at Parliament House in Canberra on December 7, 2017.Alex Ellinghaussen<\/p>\n

\u201cBut you have to be a unifying person. I wanted to bring people along. I wanted to message it in a way that wasn\u2019t polarising. It wasn\u2019t politicised. It wasn\u2019t allied particularly to a political party. It felt owned by a lot of people. When the announcement came, all I felt was relief \u2013 joy, of course, but the primary emotion was relief, [that] we hadn\u2019t f—ed it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2025, before Szubanski faced that life-changing diagnosis, she dealt with crippling pain and disturbing, vivid dreams that repeatedly pulled her out of sleep. \u201cThey kept waking me up in the middle of the night going, \u2018There\u2019s something really wrong.\u2019 My body was obviously on alert,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd then a few months before [the diagnosis], the dream started saying, \u2018You\u2019re dying, you\u2019re dying.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

Szubanski pushed her doctors for more tests. When the results came in, the conversation was short and to the point. She was on her own. \u201cThere were a number of people I could have taken with me, but I don\u2019t know, sometimes I\u2019m quite independent,\u201d she says. \u201cI went in and she said, \u2018Well, there is something there.\u2019 I said, \u2018Is it cancer?\u2019 She said, \u2018Yes, it\u2019s cancer.\u2019\u2006\u201d<\/p>\n

As Szubanski began to grasp the seriousness of her particular cancer \u2013 an incurable, relapsing lymphoma \u2013 \u201cthat it might be just a matter of … if it wasn\u2019t going to be months, but maybe years, not that long. I went into shock,\u201d she says. \u201cI immediately started texting and she\u2019s telling me the thing and I\u2019m texting my friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then she did what she always does in a challenging situation: she called Marg. \u201cI just remember saying, \u2018Oh no, no.\u2019 She was just incredibly open
about it,\u201d Downey says, \u201cand she said, \u2018Look, Marg, it\u2019s not one of the good ones.\u2019 And she didn\u2019t know how long she would have or whether the treatment was going to work. I think she had to do a deep dive into how she was going to handle it and what treatment she would go with.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such experiences profoundly reframe a friendship. They also reshape your sense of what really matters in life. \u201cWe talk about death, we talk about dying, we talk about our thoughts about what might be beyond this life,\u201d Downey says. \u201cGoing through something like Magda is going through has really made us discuss issues that we wouldn\u2019t have even dreamt about when we were young or when we were at university, having to confront all sorts of pretty heavy stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Has Downey contemplated her life without Szubanski\u2019s friendship in it? \u201cI have,\u201d she says. \u201cThat would be an incredibly sad time because I think Magda knows me better than most people \u2013 not every single secret, but she\u2019s across most things \u2013 and to have that shared history since childhood is pretty special.\u201d She would also miss the laughter. \u201cThere aren\u2019t many people, I don\u2019t know whether you feel this \u2013 but where you have a sort of shorthand with one another and one word can trigger hysterical laughter or a \u2018remember that?\u2019. We have so many shared memories.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MagdaMagda Szubanski accepts her Logie Hall of Fame Award in 2025 via video link, with David Campbell and Marg Downey on stage.Getty Images for TV WEEK Logie Awards<\/p>\n

When Szubanski told the Campbells, the trio made the decision not to conceal anything from the children. \u201c[We\u2019ve] always been as honest as possible,\u201d Lisa says. \u201cThe way that she\u2019s been able to describe [the diagnosis and the treatment] to us has been so helpful for us to understand. And that clarity has been great for our kids to understand, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Szubanski found her own understanding by pouring her thoughts and emotions into her manuscript. A line in the foreword notes: \u201cwriting the book will force me to look at things I don\u2019t want to see and remember things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not a biography, it\u2019s a memoir, but it\u2019s about the sort of feelings of things,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd so there\u2019s some stuff that I talk about, especially towards the end, that\u2019s extremely painful. A little bit of me is like, \u2018Jesus, girl, you got cancer, do you really need to make yourself feel those feelings?\u2019 But my natural instinct is just to blab the truth, and I say that from the get-go.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, I ask Szubanski, where are we today? We have friends in common and I have followed, at least indirectly, her health journey in some detail. For a time, there was chemotherapy and crushing fatigue. Now, as we are talking, the sparkling, instinctively hilarious Magda we know and love is very much in the room. The same week as our interview, she is in the studio recording the audiobook. And I\u2019m aware she\u2019s only just fighting fit and will need to rest at some point.<\/p>\n

The short answer is this: the median rate for relapse is four years, depending on potential treatments, and the median survival rate is about eight or nine years. \u201cBut that\u2019s improving [and] honestly, it can change at any time. It\u2019s definitely going to shorten my life. It could shorten it quite significantly. I don\u2019t know. If I get to 75, I\u2019ll be bloody thrilled, but if I get to 70, I\u2019ll also be thrilled. But for the moment, touch wood, achieved deep remission.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the laughter isn\u2019t going to stop. As we talk, our conversation shifts into my quoting old D-Generation and Fast Forward sketches, the lines of which have never left me. One sketch \u2013 about a stressed mother and daughter fighting in the kitchen during a family dinner \u2013 sends Szubanski into fits of giggles. It\u2019s a 40-year-old sketch, and still as funny as it was back then. She wrote it, she reveals. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, tense family meals are in her wheelhouse.<\/p>\n

One interesting effect of Szubanski\u2019s public health journey is that people have perhaps finally met the real woman behind the punchlines, says Downey. \u201cShe has a lot of depth. She\u2019s incredibly intelligent, but she can laugh at herself. She\u2019s self-deprecating, but she\u2019s a very strong person.<\/p>\n

\"Szubanski,Szubanski, as her Kath and Kim character Sharon, with Robert Irwin on stage at the Logie Awards in August. It was her first public appearance since being diagnosed with cancer.Getty Images for TV Week<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s coming at this illness with great intelligence and great integrity and great poise and great bravery, actually. Once upon a time, people probably thought, \u2018She\u2019s hilarious, she\u2019s funny.\u2019 But now I feel as though the tide is turning a bit and people are beginning to realise that she\u2019s far more than just a funny person.\u201d<\/p>\n

And in her inner world, Szubanski says she is happy. Single, but very happy. Which begs the question: would she like to fall in love again? \u201cAt the moment, I\u2019m not probably quite in that headspace, but never say never,\u201d Szubanski says, with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m completely open to it, but I\u2019m also really happy. I have a great life, which I appreciate incredibly now in the most complete and comprehensive way. I have terrific friends and family. I have a lot of love in my life, so I\u2019m having a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

I Can\u2019t Tell You But I Will by Magda Szubanski (Text Publishing) is out September 29.<\/p>\n

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