The Melbourne International Comedy Festival says it is considering how to honour Barry Humphries and has rejected claims he was "cancelled", following reignited debate about the stripping of his name from a key award.
Humphries died on Saturday, aged 89.
The satirist, actor and man behind characters such as Dame Edna Everage has been remembered as a "genius" of the entertainment industry.
Humphries grew up in Melbourne and began his career in the city before becoming a household name in the United Kingdom and across the world.
He was instrumental in setting up the Melbourne International Comedy Festival nearly four decades ago and his name was also on the title of the festival's top award from 2000 to 2018.
However, the Barry Award was renamed the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Award following comments made by Humphries abut transgender people.
They included statements that gender affirmation surgery was "self-mutilation" and being transgender was "a fashion".
His friend, entertainer Miriam Margolyes, told the ABC on Sunday she believed Humphries was "very hurt and saddened by what happened after the Melbourne festival".
She said the festival had "cancelled him rather late in life".
Another friend of Humphries, famed director Bruce Beresford, told ABC Radio Melbourne the decision to remove his name from the award was a "disgrace".
Humphries's passing coincided with the final weekend of the festival, which runs for a month in Melbourne each year.
Festival organisers marked his death in a statement on Saturday and at press conferences relating to this year's awards. However, they said there would not be an official tribute for Humphries on the final day.
Some media commentators and social media users had suggested the festival should have done more to honour the comedian.
"We've never cancelled Barry Humphries," festival director Susan Provan told ABC Radio Melbourne.
"There seems to be some misconceptions going on around there.
"We changed the name of an award, which … was the right decision to make when we did that.
"We have celebrated and continue to celebrate Barry, an incredible comedian [and] comic artist [who] took Australian comedy global.
"We will always celebrate that he was amazing. And we really value his contribution to the comedy festival, too."
Ms Provan said the name change in 2019 was because Humphries "made some comments that just did not reflect the values of our community", a decision she said was driven by artists at the festival.
In 2019, previous Barry Award winners Hannah Gadsby and Zoe Coombs-Marr were among the artists calling for the award to be renamed.
"We have not cancelled him. We don't cancel people. We don't ban people," Ms Provan said.
Ms Provan said the festival was now taking time to consider what an appropriate tribute for Humphries would be.
"He passed 24 hours before the last show. We had over 300 shows that needed to be put on yesterday. So it's been pretty frantic," she said.
She said now the event was over, festival organisers would consult with artists and comedians about what that tribute should look like.
"He was pretty special, but equally unapologetic, and equally provocative," she said.
"I guess the controversy lives on very strongly in the comedy community and will do so forever."
The Victorian government is in discussions with Humphries's family about how to farewell the Melbourne-born entertainer.
