Saturday, January 07, 2012

The Feast of Saint Peter

My Fellow Comedists,

This weekend would have been Peter Cook's 75th birthday. One of the leaders of the new radical comedy of the 1950s and 60s in Britain. His first troupe was a four-man outfit that performed under the name "Beyond the Fringe" and included Dudley Moore who would become his comic partner for decades to come. Moore was an accomplished pianist in addition to a comedian, and so the two opened a club in which Moore's jazz trio would perform and Cook would bring in cutting edge comedy that was nowhere else to be found in early 60s England. The two started clean and absurdist, but through the late 60s they got edgier and edgier. From Beyond the Fringe.
Here they are in Bedazzled.
And a decade later:


Thank you, Peter Cook for all the laughs.

Live, love, and laugh,

Irreverend Steve