Beyond the Fringe (1964)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent adaptation.

Awesome Movie

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

8/10 but 0/10 for whoever wrote the bios on the DVD. In Alan Bennett's bio regarding "Talking Heads", the writer continually refers to "Thora Bird". If you've never heard of her, it's because he means Thora Hird. The DVD itself is a priceless time-capsule for fans of any satirical comedy that came after. Some of it is dated of course, but here are a few definite gems. Cook is by far the star of the show (as was recognized at the time). Moore is not given enough to do other than his masterful piano playing, Bennett shows the roots of his future droll comedy and Miller is a bit too over the top and the weakest performer of the four. The video quality suffers occasionally as does the sound track but not to any great extent. Watch out particularly for the old lady in the audience who never applauds. Perhaps the inspiration for the Pythons' old "pepperpots".

About 30 years ago, Boston's only classical music radio station used to offer a program (after its Saturday live broadcast of the Boston Symphony) that played lots of recorded British comedy, including excerpts from "Beyond the Fringe." It was from listening to that show every week that I got to learn by heart many of the routines from this legendary stage production that started the careers of Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. This DVD now provides an opportunity to see the quartet in action, and to realize just how brilliant they were, individually and as a team.The great routines are still great. Peter Cook was a lost genius (lost, ultimately, to drink and dissipation), and his long monologue as the miner who didn't become a judge because he didn't have the Latin is a masterpiece - only in part because his deadpan stare at the audience remains unbroken even while he's speaking the most amazing nonsense. Dudley Moore, it turns out, was also something of a lost genius (lost, in his case, to Hollywood) - his musical interludes are extraordinarily accurate parodies of various classical music styles, including an eerie impersonation of Sir Peter Pears and a set of Beethovenian variations on "The Colonel Bogey March" that gets wildly out of hand.Another masterpiece is Alan Bennett's vaporous, meandering sermon, which includes a pointless retelling of the time he and a friend went climbing to the top of a mountain, at which point "my friend very suddenly and very violently vomited. I sometimes think life's a lot like that." Jonathan Miller is the least proficient actor of the group - he mugs and gesticulates and mutters a little too much, and it's probably for the best that he gave up performing in favor of medicine and opera direction.The video has a few technical faults, particularly in its sound, but the camera-work is good. For anyone even remotely interested in British comedy (and in seeing where Monty Python came from), this is a must.

If you want to laugh then see this show. This is sketch comedy at its finest, as Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook riff on pretty much everything under the sun from religion, Philosophy, music, the end of the world and being a miner. Its a wild mix of nothing is sacred humor with a very clever edge.If you want to trace the history of British comedy one would start with the music halls move on to the Goons stopping at this show before moving on to people like the Goodies, Monty Python and Eddie Izzard. These are the guys and this is the show that began, in part the draining of the colleges and setting them to work for places like the BBC. Python took the anarchic sketch comedy found here and welded the insanity of Spike Milligan and the Goons. If you need more proof consider that a good number of bits from this show ended up in the Secret Policemen's Balls that were staged by the members of Python for Amnesty International. They used the material because its funny.Historical importance aside this is a very funny show. Certainly there are bits that have dated since it was first performed but on the whole the show remains relevant, and above all funny. If you like to laugh see this show.

I snapped up this video the moment it was released as one of the rare Original London (and Broadway) cast performances recorded complete as it was done on stage (recorded at its final London performance). It was also the source of two hilarious LPs from Capitol Records that saw many of us through our college years.The classic revue - which later led to such heady intellectual fare as TV's THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS - is just as good as remembered and makes one long for the days when comedy wasn't afraid to make you think....THE FRINGE still had its share of buffoonery with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore embarking on their long careers as clown princes, but the BRIGHTEST of the bunch, Alan Bennett, is an even greater reason to spend an evening BEYOND THE FRINGE (the title an oblique reference to the famed annual Edinburgh Cultural Festival and its burgeoning "Fringe" Festival of entries which could not be booked into the main festival venues).Bennett would soon leave the performing field (mostly) to concentrate on an even longer and more fulfilling writing career. As I write this, I'm still in the heady glow of one of the early Broadway performances of what may be Bennett's masterpiece, THE HISTORY BOYS, which transferred from London with most of its cast in tact after being filmed for later release. If half as good as it is on stage, THE HISTORY BOYS will be another movie/video to be cherished and the ultimate "Bennett Double Feature" as it expands the intellectual gamesmanship Bennett first started to develop in BEYOND THE FRINGE to full mature power.A Brit recently told a newsman en-route to interview Bennett that "in England he's a God!" High praise indeed for a country which has also given us such relatively recent cultural deities as Tom Stoppard (ROSENCRANCZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD and Shakespeare IN LOVE) and Michael Frayn (NOISES OFF and COPENHAGEN), but also well merited.It all started BEYOND THE FRINGE.