'Beyond the Fringe'

[Torontonian]

‘Beyond the Fringe’ was a two-act late-night comedy revue that debuted in London, on May 10, 1961. It featured the talents of four up-and-coming comedians: Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore. They made do with a barebones set and a few simple props. Anything further would’ve been superfluous. It wasn’t exactly highbrow stuff – comedy very rarely is – but it was more sophisticated than the run-of-the-mill routines.

Anyway, one (and only one) of their performances was recorded for posterity. And after recently watching the almost two-hour show, my jaw hurt from overmuch laughing – which, I think, is a good sign. Cook’s nuanced accents were hilarious, from working-class to toffee-nosed. Moore’s intermittent minstrelsy really bolstered the show overall. And Bennett and Miller were great too, of course.

They’re especially fond of language jokes: amphibolies, puns, equivocation, and so on. And there’s even a philosophy sketch with a risible argument for abandoning final causality in favour of efficient: ‘Let’s say, for example, that we meet a friend . . . We don’t say to that friend “Why are you?†It’s absurd to say “Why are you?†We say “How are you?†don’t we?’

Here's a sample:

The DVD write-up calls the show, among other things, ‘irreverent.’ This seems to be one of the trendier adjectives bandied about these days, along with ‘raunchy’ (such a pleasant word). Irreverence and ribaldry are not new comedic devices, course. (Reading a little Aristophanes, for instance, will cure you of the delusion.) But today they often mask a dearth of ideas. Instead of deigning to work up good, well-wrought material, many seem content simply to be as bawdy as possible, as explicit as possible, as shocking as possible – as if doing so garnered instant comedic merit. Not so with our foursome. Here, irreverence and ribaldry are never ends in themselves. And a great deal is merely insinuated or suggested, making it even funnier. Modern comedians could learn from ‘Beyond the Fringe’ that less is often more.

[mazolaman]

classic comedy.

They've been playing some of these on the radio lately,great comedy.

[Torontonian]

classic comedy.

They've been playing some of these on the radio lately,great comedy.

I knew our British members would be familiar with the troupe. Nice to hear that they're getting some radio play. They committed more of the lengthy show to record, I think, than they did to film.

I've always enjoyed radio comedy. Now and then, when in need of a laugh, I listen to recordings of the infamous 'Goon Show.'