When I started subbing the drum chair for "Avenue Q" in New York back in 2007, I was always greeted at the stage door to the Golden Theater with various clippings and pictures of all of the acts that had played the Golden Theater at one time or another. The list was amazing: Nichols & May, Shirly Temple, Jackie Mason, Jimmy Stewart, Bert Lahr, Jessica Tandy, Kathy Bates and the great comedy duo of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Cook and Moore gave the American premiere of their show, "Beyond The Fringe" at the Golden and knowing that was enough to make me feel as though I was walking into the Buckingham Palace of theater. Q is no longer at that theater, having moved Off Broadway to the New World Stages but I still enjoy the fact that I played the same theater as "Beyond The Fringe". Here is the original cast album from the original London show featuring the amazing comedy of Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. Enjoy!
Beyond The Fringe Original Cast Album
2 comments:
Love your blog!
The Beyond the Fringe record was my first exposure to British comedy. BYF really hasn't been equaled, even by Monty Python (who are just as great, but in their own way).
You may already know this, but there's a DVD of their final performance in 1964. Available on Amazon and elsewhere.
At about the same time, the early Second City was also doing a lot of intellectual humor. I'm thinking specifically of Severn Darden's "Metaphysics Lecture" and "Oedipus Rex" lecture. Of course Nichols and May and Shelley Berman had an intellectual slant. I sometimes wonder if there was some common factor of origin between Second City and BYF that caused them both to arise at that particular time.
Jim C.
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I forgot to add that after I bought the DVD last year, I checked the script out of the library so I could finally understand everything they rattled off in the Shakespeare parody!
Jim C.
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