So after decades of reading about the comedy revue that jump-started the careers of the comic duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, I finally watched on DVD that revue that also featured Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller: Beyond the Fringe. Not everything that was depicted in this now-legendary event was funny, in fact, many of the references to certain historical or cultural happenings were dated to me but there were still a few skits that were quite hilarious to me like the beginning one about America, "The Great Train Robbery" with Cook making it clear that it's not a reference to a train being stolen, another Cook sketch in which he's a coal miner who wanted to be a judge and who writes about nude women on the side, and then there's "One Leg Too Few" in which Cook interviews Moore jumping on one foot as he auditions for the role of Tarzan! That one I recognized immediately since I first watched this sketch on a rerun of "Saturday Night Live" that they hosted when I was a teen. Still quite hilarious to me. Also loved seeing Moore at the piano especially as he makes faces to us or when he performs a pretentious version of "The Colonel Bogey March". Bennett can be a bit droll here especially when he plays a vicar delivering a sermon about the part of a sardine can you can't reach into and Miller can occasionally amuse when he mugs furiously. So on that note, I'd recommend Beyond the Fringe for anyone who's into satire especially of the British kind.
