Beyond the Fringe (2-CD)

by Various Artists

Digitally remastered and expanded two CD edition. Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, and Jonathan Miller. It played in London's West End and then in America, both on tour and on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s. Hugely successful, it is widely regarded as seminal to the rise of satirical comedy in 1960s Britain. The show was conceived in 1960 by an Oxford graduate, Robert Ponsonby, artistic director for the Edinburgh International Festival, with the idea of bringing together the best of revues by the Cambridge Footlights and The Oxford Revue, which had both transferred to Edinburgh for short runs in previous years. John Bassett, a graduate of Wadham College, Oxford, who was Ponsonby's assistant, recommended Dudley Moore, his jazz bandmate and a rising cabaret talent. Moore in turn recommended Alan Bennett, who had had a hit at Edinburgh a few years before. Bassett also chose Jonathan Miller, who had been a Footlights star in 1957. Miller recommended Peter Cook. The majority of the sketches were by Peter Cook and were largely based on material written for other revues. Among the entirely new material were "The End of the World", "TVPM" and "The Great Train Robbery". Peter Cook and Dudley Moore revived some of the sketches on their later television and stage shows, most famously the two-hander "One Leg Too Few". Originally released in an edited form as a single album in 1961, this double CD issue contains for the complete 1961 Show Recorded at the Fortune Theatre in London.