Videology

There was a news story out of Bulgaria today in which a gunman was stopped before shooting, and the crowd and officials en-mass fell on the man and beat him apparently to a pulp. This lead to my favorite quote from what could have been an awful situation. Following the bloody beating, the news agency reported, "He was not in good shape." No, I would think not.

But that lead me to thinking about one of my all-time favorite comedy sketches, from the legendary Beyond the Fringe, and happily -- and remarkably -- there is video footage of it. It's "The Great Train Robbery," in which Alan Bennett interviews Peter Cook, who plays an early incarnation of a character he later played with Dudley Moore, 'Sir Arthur Streib-Griebling,' a pompous and well-intentioned, but out-of-his-depth upper-class nit. (Bennett, for those interested, was to become a great playwright, his best-known work perhaps being his play, and screen adaptation, The Madness of King George.)