[3] The uncouth Sir Les Patterson teams up with Dame Edna Everage (both played by Barry Humphries) to save the world from a virulent bioterror attack ordered by Colonel Richard Godowni (Thaao Penghlis) of the Gulf State of Abu Niveah.

The film was co-written by Humphries with his third wife Diane Millstead, and directed by George Miller of The Man from Snowy River fame.

The film was originally meant to be made by Thorn EMI in Britain but was eventually established in Australia with entirely Australian money.

[7] Filmink argued the film "would have been successful – had it been grounded in some kind of reality" but it "add a pure movie-movie plot... a riff on spy movies, complete with fictitious Arabian countries recreated on the backlot a la some racist British comedy of the 1950s.

Edna had left the land of verisimilitude to morph into more of a showbiz in-joke – which was admittedly still funny and worked a treat on stage and television, but not on film, as she didn’t have Barry McKenzie as an anchor.