Above and Beyond the Fringe

3/23/2014

As I wrote here, the revue Beyond the Fringe was made up of some awfully remarkable people, not just as comic performers within the troupe, but (remarkably, given the fame of the show) perhaps more what they did individually after -- Peter Cooke, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett (playwright of The Madness of King George III and The History Boys) and Dr. Jonathan Miller (National Theatre opera director, Shakespearean director, and neuropsychologist). It had its start at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960, when four young talented men from Oxford and Cambridge Universities were brought together.

I've posted several sketches from the famous show, and the other day suggested in a reply to a comment that I had come across something special and would be posting it soon.

Today is soon enough.

Here is Beyond the Fringe. Not a sketch or two...but the whole freaking thing. The legendary show. When you have two hours, sit back and revel in it. Or bookmark the video and make it through piecemeal.

The show opened on the West End in 1961 and later transferred to Broadway, where Jonathan Miller was eventually replaced by Paxton Whitehead, who appears on the second Broadway album, Beyond the Fringe '64. (Among his many acclaimed credits and stage awards, he's probably most recognized for playing the husband of the snooty British couple across the hall from Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser in Mad About You.)

This performance comes from the final "gala farewell" on London's West End. Though the show ran until 1966, I suspect this comes from 1962, when the original cast left to take the show to Broadway. The voiceover announcer notes that the play has played on Broadway, but since is the cast's final performance before going to Broadway, by the time this film was released it was legitimate to say that the show had played in New York.

Fun too is the brief introduction with the camera maneuvering around the West End and seeing the marquees of the shows that were playing at the time, including Camelot with Laurence Harvey, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum starring Frankie Howerd, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf and Oliver!, among the many.

The video isn't up to today's movie production standard, but seriously who cares? This is from a live stage production with the original cast, and captures it all for posterity, and that's about as good as it gets.

It may not all translate ideally to a video, where we tend to expect things faster paced and more image oriented. This is a stage show, after all, recorded on video. It's talky, thoughtful, very smart, with some of the material dated politically perhaps. It's also vibrantly clever and anti-authority in suits and ties. And generally is utterly and blissfully funny. And that it exists in its entirety is stunning.

In the image below, from left to right are Peter Cook, Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore.

Curtain up...

2 Comments

Jim Haberman

3/23/2014 07:59:21 am

Hi, Mr. Elisberg, this is my first comment post on your excellent blog which I’ve been reading almost daily for several months and, as that likely indicates, greatly enjoying (first heard about you via Mark Evanier’s blog). What I most love is the impressive combination of variety and depth in your column subjects, just a little sheepishly regretting that mine aren’t quite so wide.

One of your subjects that I’m very interested in, some might say borderline obsessed, is “Beyond the Fringe” and especially its four remarkable creator/performers. (Most especially among them being the absolutely unique comic voice of Peter Cook, ingenious author of more than half of “Fringe.”) This places me into an extremely tiny fan club as far as the US goes, but by now I’m more than used to the blank stares I typically get whenever bold (or tipsy) enough to introduce the subject, even among comedy and/or theatre buffs. What occasionally still shocks me is that mighty rare instance where I find a kindred “Fringe” spirit here in the States.

So of course I’ve much enjoyed your recent posts on the show, and am impressed that your recounting of the facts and history of it have tallied up well with my own understanding. One small point in your latest post could use a touch of clarification, though, and I hope you don’t mind if I offer that here. (Apologies in advance for the moderate length of this comment; brevity once again escapes my grasp.)

This recording of the entire performance of “Fringe” actually dates from shortly after the very end of its complete run with the original members. The show ended its Broadway stint in late May 1964 with only Dudley Moore left abroad of the founding group. Sometime in late summer, with all the principals back home in the UK, the BBC arranged for a “gala farewell performance” of the show at its longtime home, London’s Fortune Theatre. The idea was to record it all with its original cast, obviously on videotape as was BBC’s custom at the time, and to televise an hour-long edited version of the recorded show on BBC2 in early December 1964, which is what in fact happened.

What’s astounding here, of course, is that this full-length record of that performance still exists at all. The BBC was hugely notorious for erasing their videotapes for re-use at an alarming rate, leaving their vaults with very little content prior to the late seventies, when they finally abandoned that disastrous and nearly incomprehensible part of their business model. It’s well known that Peter Cook himself offered to pay the BBC a huge sum for copies of the three series of the wonderful “Not Only … But Also” program he starred in with Dudley Moore between ‘65 and ’70, when he’d heard from an insider that they were about to be wiped. The BBC’s refusal came back with the pitiful reasoning that doing so would set an undesirable precedent, a position they’d sadly clung to for many years.

So it’s no surprise at all that the televised one-hour cutdown of “Fringe” is utterly lost along with countless other BBC treasures of the era. But how on earth, one wonders, did this complete version ever manage to escape the flames? There are probably a few left who know that answer, but all I’m aware of is that it apparently surfaced about 12 to 15 years ago at the Museum of Television, then happily was released on DVD in 2005. Despite its less-than-stellar video and audio quality, that’s quite enough for me.

And enough of my wordiness for now too. Thanks again and huge congrats for providing the web with such an entertaining and informative blog, proving once more those two qualities can in fact co-exist, and for such surprisingly frequent updates as well.

One last semi-quick thing; there’s a terrific website out there with the most detailed history of “Fringe” that anyone’s probably ever undertaken. Not surprisingly, it seems British in origin (the wording, plus the fact that its detail of the Broadway run is somewhat less intricate than its UK rundown), and its whole saga makes for thoroughly fascinating, if not exactly brief, reading. The site is found here:
http://www.beyondthefringe.site40.net/index.html

All my very best,
Jim Haberman
Carpinteria, CA

Robert Elisberg

3/23/2014 04:14:44 pm

Jim, I am much appreciative of your far-too-kind comments, and also for your correction and updating of information about this recording. It's bizarre that it even was recorded in the first place, let alone (as you say) still exists, especially with the BBC's policy.

If you do a search of the site, you'll find that I've posted some videos of "Not Only...But Also," and at some point down the line, I'll likely post some of my own digitized audio recordings from LPs of the show, as well as Peter Cook's hilarious and brilliant "The Misty Mr. Wisty" monologues. Watch This Space -- and spread the word.

That you read Mark Evanier's great blog means that your plate is already full from that alone...

Thanks again.

Above and Beyond the Fringe

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