Peter Cook (I)

Tim Key: the spirit of 'Derek and Clive'

Tim Key's new comedy record recalls the glory days of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

Audio: Pete and Dud recordings found

Almost all the lost Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketches from their television show Not Only... But Also have emerged in a private collection of audio tapes.

A lot of dirt seems to have been dished out about Peter Sellers since his death 30 years ago, mostly honing in on his allegedly volatile temper, family life and unpredictable behaviour on set. But, thankfully, Archive on 4: Sellers in the Attic was just a great, hour-long wallow in his eccentric, unique comedy legacy. It helped that the presenter, comedy writer and historian Glenn Mitchell is clearly a huge Sellers fan, recalling how he scoured local record shops for rare recordings when young. Amid the obvious nods to the Goons and Pink Panther series of hit comedies, the programme contained snippets that gave a real insight of a man totally unimpressed by comic convention and always willing to push boundaries. This includes recording a version of the Beatles' Hard Day's Night in the guise of Laurence Olivier, appearing as a punch drunk boxer turned action painter alongside Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, and mocking the works of poet, William McGonagall, whom he described as truly awful. Given his huge success in Hollywood later in his career, it's a little sad that he describes working with his fellow Goons "as the happiest period of [his] life" in comparison. Warts and all, three decades since his demise, Sellers remains fascinating.

Video: Lost Pete and Dud sketch re-enacted

A lost Peter Cook and Dudley Moore sketch is re-enacted with Dud (played by Adrian Edmondson) waking up screaming from a dream. Pete (played by Jonny Sweet) decides to attempt to decipher Dud's dream using Freud's theories.

The Wardrobe sketch is from the landmark television comedy show, Not Only... But Also which was largely wiped from the BBC archives.

I'm Pete again, aren't I?" said Angus Deayton, during one of the bits of rehearsal actuality that filled out Pete and Dud: the Lost Sketches. You wish, Angus. You wish. Actually, you're Angus Deayton, which is fine as far as it goes, but still leaves a slightly conspicuous gap between towering comic genius and jobbing comedy actor.

It's a gap that would generally pass unremarked, but for the fact that Deayton, and several other contemporary comedians, had accepted the BBC's invitation to restage some Not Only... But Also sketches that the corporation, in a more careless time, had managed to wipe. If the title got you all excited at the thought that someone had found a dusty spool of film in their attic and we were going to see the real thing you will have been disappointed. This was a tribute-band celebration of Pete and Dud, rather as if someone had accidentally destroyed the acetates of St Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 40-odd years ago, and they'd called in Jedward and Susan Boyle to reconstruct it from sheet music.

That analogy may be a little harsh, perhaps, but the show - one of the last things Jonathan Ross will front up for the BBC before he heads off to ITV - was an odd affair, clumsily blending the preparation for the show with a live-audience studio section in which the assembled players were introduced to do the greatest hits. Most of them, wisely, had decided not emulate the original delivery, not exactly inimitable - since the accents and manner almost instantly fed into every playground and student bar in Britain - but not easy to imitate well. That meant, though, that the focus necessarily shifted to the writing - the lines being the only residue of the original. Some of it stood up well. In one of the more famous "Dagenham dialogues", in which Pete tries to take Dud through rebirthing therapy, you could catch the authentic flavour of Peter Cook's imagination. When Dud protests at the idea that he wants to get back to his mother's womb, Pete is quick to clarify matters: "I'm not suggesting that you go around now to 465 Beckingtree Avenue and ask your mother for re-admission," he says, "It's four o'clock in the morning... and anyway it's illegal."

But in other sketches the raw words were left looking a little thin and you realised how important the volatile elements of a comedy partnership can be - the intangible stuff (including all the corpsing) - which they added to the printed words and which can only be captured by a recording. Some of the restagings here were frankly embarrassing, carrying the stale whiff of a thousand am-dram revues in which devoted fans vainly attempt to get lightning to strike twice. It was a reminder of just how good the originals could be, but not perhaps in quite the way that was first intended. "The BBC has wiped these tapes now... is that a big loss?" Jonathan Ross asked someone lamely at one point. Well if they hadn't we might have been spared this, which would have been something.

Was it madness or arrogance that persuaded the volunteers on Pete And Dud: The Lost Sketches that they could sketch in the shadow of genius? The idea of the likes of Angus Deayton and Adrian Edmondson attempting to emulate the comedy chemistry of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore seemed like the product of a lock-in after the Baftas. In other words, it should never have survived the cold light of day.

Yet, though it was light on belly laughs and clearly in thrall to its source material, Pete And Dud: The Lost Sketches was oddly entertaining. Introduced by lifelong Pete and Dud fan Jonathan Ross (and for once he seemed genuine), the set of sketches performed - 'lost' in the sense that the BBC unbelievably wiped the original TV tapes, so they only survive in audio or script form - at least served as a priceless reminder of one of the truly great comedy pairings.

It was like watching a rock tribute band who know all the words and get the notes in the right place. You could sing along but inevitably there was a spark missing. It was the brief clips of the real Pete And Dud that were worth sticking around for, the mix of surreal allusion, schoolboy smut and lady frocks making it clear how much the duo influenced everyone from The Fast Show to Little Britain.

There was a missed opportunity in the mix: Stephen Fry and David Mitchell, only featured as talking heads, would have made a perfect Pete and Dud.

Instead the originals were lovingly, though palely, imitated, new boy Jonny Sweet coming closest to catching the anarchic 1960s spirit that Pete and Dud encapsulated.

Now what we need is a series that rounds up every clip that still exists.

Jonathan Ross rounds off his BBC career this week with his final chat show on Friday, and this love-letter to comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Ross, a devotee of the pair's sardonic, surreal sketches, tells us that Pete and Dud were his first TV comedy love. Their series Not Only... but Also ran on BBC2 between 1965 and 1970. It will surprise no one to learn that the BBC subsequently wiped the tapes of many of its 23 episodes, some of which survive only in script form. Which is where we reach the chancy bit of Pete and Dud: the Lost Sketches. Ross's guests - including Alistair McGowan, Angus Deayton and Hugh Dennis - gather to re-create some of these vanished comedy gems. I hope it works.

It's one of the tragedies of 1960s TV that so many episodes coveted by posterity were wiped at the time, either because it was assumed they'd be of no further interest or simply to reuse the tapes. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's Not Only... But Also fell foul of this folly. However, sketches have survived in script form and here Jonathan Ross assembles a contemporary cast including Angus Deayton, Ade Edmondson and Simon Day to recreate them, while Stephen Fry and David Mitchell among others consider Pete and Dud's legacy.

Right up until the late Seventies, it was common policy for the BBC to wipe reels containing previously broadcast programmes in order to make space in the archives and save money by reusing the tape. One of the most significant casualties was Dudley Moore and Peter Cook's seminal comedy sketch show Not Only... But Also, of which fewer than half of the 22 episodes survive - despite apparent efforts by Peter Cook to purchase the masters from the BBC before they were wiped. While some of Pete & Dud's famous routines have been recovered from other filmed performances, others now exist in script form only.

Hence this project, spearheaded by Jonathan Ross, to resurrect Moore and Cook's lost sketches by reperforming them with a group of contemporary comic actors, including Adrian Edmondson, Alistair McGowan (who is rather good as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling) and Outnumbered's Hugh Dennis. The scripts still sparkle despite the passing of time, but the performances, perhaps inevitably, make you miss the real Pete and Dud all the more. However, the film has undoubtedly been made with the best of intentions, and includes rare archive footage of the original duo in action too.