Peter Cook Page 3

Quote: Ronnie Anderson @ March 22 2009, 3:31 AM GMT

still the best Peter Cook work has to be the Clive Anderson interviews. If some TV producers in the early nineties had been brave enough there could have easily been a classic TV series made of these characters.

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And there was a plan for just such a TV series - in the form of a second series of A Life In Pieces in 1994, but according to biographer Harry Thompson, Cook lacked the inclination and application to make the project a reality. He was more into watching TV and drinking himself to death, rather than full-time writing and performing. His heavy boozing worsened following the death of his mother in June 1994. He did create some new characters for the Peter Cook Talks Golf Balls Christmas-release video and then died in January 1995.

EDIT: Worth mentioning the great story about the time that David Frost telephoned Peter Cook to announce that he was hosting a dinner party on Wednesday the 12th for Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and the Royal couple were huge fans and would be delighted if Peter would attend. Cook replied: "Hang on, I'll just check my diary. Oh dear, I find I'm watching television that night."

Quote: Kenneth @ March 22 2009, 6:58 AM GMT

EDIT: Worth mentioning the great story about the time that David Frost telephoned Peter Cook to announce that he was hosting a dinner party on Wednesday the 12th for Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, and the Royal couple were huge fans and would be delighted if Peter would attend. Cook replied: "Hang on, I'll just check my diary. Oh dear, I find I'm watching television that night."

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And didn't Cook claim that his biggest regret in life was saving David Frost from drowning?

Quote: Dolly Dagger @ March 22 2009, 10:14 AM GMT

And didn't Cook claim that his biggest regret in life was saving David Frost from drowning?

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Yes! He said it was the only sincere regret of his life. John Bird tells the story that Peter Cook hated David Frost with such vehemence that when Frost visited the Beyond the Fringe cast in Connecticut they really thought Cook would kill him. Instead, Cook forced himself to behave politely and suggested that Frost might like a swim in the pool because it was such a hot day. Frost agreed, even though he couldn't swim, but he didn't want Cook to know this, so he jumped into the deep end and started drowning. Cook saved him. John Bird says that when he heard the commotion and rushed outside he thought Cook was trying to murder Frost in the pool.

Yeah, Cook disliked Frost to some degree; Frost *allegedly* basically used to steal a lot of his material and copy him. Once Cook went to the BBC with the idea of making a satirical show, he then went to America and whilst he was there, That Was The Week That Was began, more or less exactly what Cook had spoken to the Beeb about!

Blimey!

The Bubonic Plagiarist was what they called David Frost. The Goodies referenced Frost's propensity for theft in the episode Scoutrageous, when Graeme Garden was explaining the 'World Domination Badge', which had only been received by three people: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and David Frost ("mind you, Frostie pinched his.")

Eric Idle once said he saw Frost perform one of his sketches on TV without asking permission. When he complained Frost just sent him some champagne.

Frost built a marvellous career out of other people's material.

Oh and Peter Cook was brilliant. Stephen Fry recounted his response when someone said it wasn't Taylor's fault she was putting on weight, it was her glands:

"I know. Poor woman. There she is, in her suite in the Dorchester, harmlessly watching television. Suddenly her glands pick up the phone and order two dozen eclairs and a bottle of brandy. 'No,' she screams, 'please, I beg you!' but her glands take no notice. Determined glands they are, her glands. You've never known glands like them. The trolley arrives and Elizabeth Taylor hides in the bathroom, but her glands, her glands take the eclairs, smash down the door and stuff them down her throat. I'm glad I haven't got glands like that. Terrible glands."

Any Peter Cook completists feeling the urge to watch all of his films need not bother with Black Beauty, in which he played Lord Wexmire (his final film role). He doesn't appear until the 40 minute mark and has only a few lines before disappearing by about the 50 minute mark. And even though the film's cast includes Peter Davison, Eleaonor Bron, Alun Armstrong and David Thewlis, it was crap because the eponymous horse is just too self-righteous to be interesting.

Better viewing was Not Only But Always, the Channel 4 biopic of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Not terribly sympathetic toward Pete, and it omitted key parts of their careers and private lives, but Rhys Ifans was excellent as Cook. That said, it did give the impression that the break-up of their partnership prompted Pete to become jealous, despondent and descend into alcoholism and then death. Which is bollocks.

There haven't been many better things ever than the gloriousness of Beyond The Fringe.

Quote: Jackson Neil @ July 21 2009, 2:02 PM BST

There haven't been many better things ever than the gloriousness of Beyond The Fringe.

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Though I could live without some of the stuff Cook didn't himself write!

The Alan Bennet "vicar" monologue was great. As was the Miller/Bennet philosophers sketch. 'Aftermyth Of War' was very much a joint effect. And Miller's monologue on English railway gentlemen's toilets was superb. Peter was the most prolific writer (and the funniest), but BTF wouldn't have had the depth to rise above previous revues without the others. And Dud's contribution as a musical parodist and performer was rather underestimated too.

Most of the others bits don't do a lot for me. The ones Cook didn't have a hand in. I don't think I've heard or read the toilet one.

My particular faves are the One Leg Too Few sketch and his One Foot In The Grave part

I really like the Train Robbery sketch too, which might have only been featured in the American run, I'm not sure.