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.
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.