14 JANUARY 1995, Page 39

Television

Peter Cook

Ian Hislop Pete: Have you seen that bloody Leonar- do Da Vinci Cartoon?

Dud: No.

Pete: I couldn't see the joke. Went down there. Nothing.

Dud: Well of course you know Pete Peo- ple's sense of humour must have changed over the years.

Pete: Yes of course it has. That's why it's not funny any more.

Dud: I bet when that Da Vinci cartoon first came out people were killing them- selves.

Not Only But Also came out 25 years ago and Beyond The Fringe nearly ten years before that. Yet when they showed clips of them on the news this week I found myself laughing out loud again and again. Nothing is meant to date more quickly than humour, and satire is often the most transitory of all, but Peter Cook's best work has worn remarkably well. Even the short extracts in the news round-ups seemed to confirm that all the talk of genius was not just post-mortem hyperbole. He was origi- nal, surreal, inspired, lunatic, whimsical, satirical, absurd, absurdist and all the other adjectives that have been overused this week. Including funny. When friends of Peter like myself came on the screen look- ing gloomy and announced that he was the funniest man we had ever known it was comforting to then see the extracts demon- strate the fact. For me the news coverage was one of the saddest aspects of his death. Normally when the Private Eye offices are besieged with cameramen after some disas- ter Peter was on hand with an endless sup- ply of jokes. This time there was no Peter and no jokes. There were however glimpses of Pete and Dud in the Art Gallery and in the Pub and in the One-Legged Tarzan sketch and it made me want to see a great deal more. The problem is that there is so little classic Cook on film. The BBC managed to wipe off quite a lot of Not Only But Also and there does not appear to be much left of any recordings of Beyond The Fringe. There is still 'Bedazzled', Cook's brilliant retelling of the Faust story complete with trampolin- ing nuns, and his recent return to form in a show with Clive Anderson. Yet there is so much that is not there and which one can only get through other media.

So in this week's television column I am recommending the very old gramophone recording of the Beyond The Fringe Show, and the two quite old books of collected scripts called Beyond the Fringe and The Dagenham Dialogues. The two books are the best indication of Cook's writing talent and the recording shows Cook the per- former at his most confident peak.

I listened to this record endlessly as a child and could recite his sketches about Civil Defence, about second world war films and about Third World dictators off by heart. When asked to do the radio pro- gramme With Great Pleasure jive at the Edinburgh Fringe last year I chose as one of my favourite pieces the sketch where Cook impersonated Harold Macmillan. I played it to a young audience who had no difficulty recognising a politician talking nonsense and who roared with laughter. Macmillan gets a sad letter from an old age pensioner which he says has printed itself indelibly on his mind. He then says 'Let me read it to you'. It ends with the distinct sound of a letter being torn up. It came over as funny as relevant today as it was then.

Dud: I saw this big sign saying Topical Fish this way. I thought that's o.k. see a few topical fish, a few up to the minute bits of satire, topical barbs about the current situ- ation in the world today.