Pete and Dud Talking Comedy

"Exciting", "pioneering", "dangerous".

Words used to describe British comedy's original bad boys,

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

They were pushing at humour's boundaries

from the moment they burst onto the scene in the 1960s.

Peter Cook was then widely considered the funniest man alive.

Moore was, for a time, Hollywood's unlikeliest sex symbol.

As part of the legendary Beyond The Fringe group,

along with Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett,

they were leading lights in the satirical movement,

setting their sights on politics, royalty and the class system.

They then paired off together on television

with Not Only... But Also,

and onstage with hit shows like Behind The Fridge.

We'll start with a glimpse of them after one performance and a taste of

the spontaneous way they always bounced off each other.

# The overture is about to start

# You cross your fingers and hold your heart

# It's curtain time and away we go

# Another openin' of another show

# Another openin'... #

-What did you think of the show tonight?

-I thought it was OK.

I thought the tiny one was a little pushy.

-The little chap?

-Yes.

He was a bit sort of... I don't know, he seemed to mug a lot.

-Yes. He goes over the top quite a lot.

-Goes over the top.

I enjoyed the bit when the...

-You know that thing comes down? What's it called?

-The thing?

-No, the curtain.

-Yes.

I thought that was tremendously well done.

-Yes.

-It came down on cue.

-Yes.

-And one had a chance to get out...

And get out of the blasted theatre.

-Yes, I thought that was nice.

-Yes, I enjoyed that. I quite...

I thought in a way it was rather like a fine wine, you know.

-Yes.

-It didn't travel.

-No.

-Do you travel much?

-Seldom.

-Seldom, yes.

It's best to stay in the same place for about a year, isn't it?

Who are you, by the way?

You met me about a second ago.

-That's right.

-I'm that chap you met about a second ago.

That's right, yes, yes, silly of me.

Yes. Well, very nice to see you and...

Well, good luck with the thing.

Yes, I hope everything...

-Yes, it will.

-Is she still...?

She's a little... As you can imagine, she had one of those...

Well, I understand, but...

Mine was having, sort of, you know...

Henry, you know, he had one of his...

Did he? Twice.

Yes. Anyway, awfully nice.

Nice to see you, and I'll be seeing you...

Well, in about, I should say, about a second.

Cook and Moore revelled in the ridiculous.

They enjoyed nothing more than cracking up at each other's jokes,

and created in their Pete and Dud personas

one of the funniest double acts ever seen on television.

Here's a little glimpse of Dudley appearing as Dud and others

on the BBC Two review programme Late Night Line-Up,

introduced by Joan Bakewell.

And now, Not Only... But Also. When this series originally opened,

it received rather mixed reviews from the television critics

of the national press,

but by the time the series ended,

this had changed to national acclaim.

Well, in view of the fact of the attention

that this programme has commanded,

we have invited several critics along tonight to talk about it.

Here they are, introduced by Dudley Moore.

Good evening. Tonight, we have a discussion

of the programme Not Only... But Also,

and with me in the studio to discuss the programme,

we have critic Lyndon Prubes.

Good evening.

And joining him, two newcomers to Late Night Line-Up.

First, the sweetheart of the Drury Lane

and the star of many musical comedy hits of yesteryear,

such as My Ukulele Dreamboat and Sweet Jimmy O'Casey,

Miss Deirdre Flank.

That's going back quite a bit, isn't it?

Good evening.

Secondly, someone who is directly connected

with the programme every week...

..Dud.

Oh, sorry. Uh, good evening.

I'd like to start the ball rolling with a question to Lyndon Prubes.

Lyndon, do you think there's a danger

that this kind of programme might give birth

to a lot of second-rate imitations

and thus contaminate television viewing for people?

Well, I think the damage has been done already, hasn't it, really?

I mean, if people can't think of anything more original

than doing sketches and having musical items,

then I'm very sorry for them.

I mean, we have seen it all before, haven't we?

Mind you, the stars of this show,

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, are frightfully young.

I mean, they probably haven't seen very much of life.

Perhaps with a little more experience of people

and the real earthiness of life and life as it's really lived,

this crude clay of modern living,

then perhaps they'll produce

something more compelling and pertinent for us.

Thank you very much, Lyndon.

Miss Flank, or Deirdre, if I can call you that,

you were the toast of the West End some 30 years ago, weren't you,

before Cook and Moore were born.

What do you think of the mixture,

this new mixture of satire and whimsy

that people term "the new comedy"?

Well...

it seems to me that the new comedy merely consists

of saying filthy words like...

..B-L-O-O-D-Y.

And you especially seem to favour that word more than it deserves.

-Bloody sauce.

-Urgh!

A year after that appearance,

Late Night Line-Up was celebrating its 1,000th episode.

To mark the occasion, the programme came live from Soho

and let Cook and Moore take the proceedings over completely.

Who would have thought 1,000 years ago...

LAUGHTER

..that we would be sitting here today...

..on the millionth anniversary...

..of Late Night Line-Up

or LNMRSNUP,

as it's known to intimates and sophisticates all over the world.

I don't know, who would have thought, Pete?

That was a rhetorical question, Dud,

it wasn't actually seriously concerned

with the individuality of the person who'd have thought it.

-I see.

-And anyone who spends his time

thinking up what two stupid people

sitting at the table in 1,000 years' time would be doing,

must be out of their mind.

I think we must proffer our heartfelt congratulations

-to Mr David Attenborough here.

-Bless his heart.

-Bless his heart.

-Bless his cotton socks.

-APPLAUSE

Who moved on from the heady world of making wonderful documentary films

about the mating habits of Armand and Michaela Denis...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

..to pioneer a system of television

unrivalled throughout the whole human world.

Not to mention ants.

I'm looking forward, actually, to this colour change business.

-What, the advent?

-No, the colour change on BBC Two.

The advent of colour television on BBC Two?

Yeah. I'm looking forward to that.

Bringing as it does... I mean,

in the past, we have had to sit through

grey, dismal programmes in black and white.

Now we can watch dismal red, blue and green programmes.

-I wouldn't say that.

-No? Wouldn't you?

-No, I said it, so there's no reason why you should...

-No reason.

There we saw Pete and Dud working very much together,

but they were equally well-known for the individual performances

that were part of their shows.

Dudley was one of the most gifted pianists of his generation,

renowned for frenzied performances of the classics,

delivered with his own comic twist.

Peter's solo routines tended to be more low-key.

One of his most popular characters

was the famously dull EL Wisty,

who came up in this Parkinson show

featuring the entire cast of Beyond The Fringe.

Where do you get your material from?

Do you actually, sort of, pick up bits of what people say,

or is it right from the top of your head?

Not very much. I don't pick up from what people say.

There happens to be one number in the show which actually is based on

somebody I knew,

who was a don at Cambridge who was very bored...

..with his life as a don in that he was delivering the same lecture

every day. It was the same lecture and I realised very quickly

when I went to Cambridge that I didn't need to go to lectures.

All I had to do was buy the book and read it, you know.

So that is based on real life, but on the whole things come from...

inside me when I'm writing.

-What about EL Wisty?

-EL Wisty, he came from nowhere.

I have never met anybody like him.

I trust I never do.

-He's coming up now, actually.

-He came from inside me.

-Is he coming up now?

-Yes, we've got his hat and his coat.

Hat and coat?

APPLAUSE

Cor blimey.

The original EL Wisty.

Oh, good evening.

Yes, I could have been a judge, but I never had the Latin.

I never had the Latin for the judging.

I just never had sufficient of it

to get through the rigorous judging exams.

They're noted for their rigour.

People come staggering out saying, "My God, what a rigorous exam."

And so I became a miner instead.

A coal miner.

I managed to get through the mining exams.

They are not very rigorous.

They only ask you one question.

They say, "Who are you?"

And I got 75% on that.

Of course, it's quite interesting

getting hold of lumps of coal all day.

It's a very interesting job.

The trouble with it is the people.

I'm not saying you get a load of riffraff down the mine.

I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying we had a load of riffraff down my mine.

Very boring conversation.

Extremely boring.

All they could talk about is about what goes on in the mine.

I mean, it was very boring.

If you were searching for a word

to describe the conversations that go on down the mine,

"boring" would spring to your lips.

Oh, they are very boring indeed.

If ever you want to hear things like...

"Hello, I've found a bit of coal..."

LAUGHTER

"Have you really?" "Yes, there's no doubt about it.

"This black substance is coal all right."

"Jolly good. The very thing we're looking for."

It's not enough to keep the mind alive, is it?

Whoops!

Did you notice that I suddenly said, "Whoops!"?

I suddenly said, "Whoops!"

It's an impediment I got from being down the mine,

cos one day, I was walking along in the dark when I came across

the body of a dead pit pony.

"Whoops!" I went...

in surprise.

And ever since then I've been going, "Whoops!"

And that's another reason why I couldn't be a judge,

because I might have been up there all regal, you know, in my robes,

sentencing away and I could be saying to Ron and Reggie...

..I could be saying, "I sentence you two, Ron and Reggie, to whoops!"

And, you see, the trouble is that under English law

that would have to stand.

So, all in all, I'd rather have been a judge than a miner.

What's more, being a miner,

as soon as you're too old and tired

and sick and stupid to do your job properly, you have to retire.

Well, the very opposite applies with judges.

So, all in all, I would rather have been a judge than a miner.

-Good night.

-APPLAUSE

SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY APPLAUSE

You still seem to make each other laugh, actually.

I suppose it's... Did you, when you worked together,

was there any problem of corpsing and giggling and this sort of thing?

All the time. All the time.

-Worst at the end.

-Yes, it got worse and worse and worse.

I mean, there were moments when the show simply didn't go on

because one or other of us had done something

which the audience didn't know about, which...

LAUGHTER

..had they known about,

trouble would have broken out.

And Dudley used to stand in the wings when you were doing a sketch,

and so you'd then have to direct the sketch

to the other side of the stage and you'd suddenly notice

he was actually stood on the other side, so,

-I mean...

-There was one dreadful moment,

I don't know if Jonathan has ever forgiven me,

but his first baby was born in America while we were on tour.

Jonathan and Alan were doing a sketch about philosophy,

two philosophy people,

and in the middle of it, I came on with Jonathan's newborn baby.

And I said, "Excuse me, sir.

"The wife has...

"The wife has just delivered this.

"What should I do with it?"

And as far as I remember, he said,

"Just put it in the fridge, would you?"

Whenever Pete and Dud appeared on a chat show,

there was little you could predict apart from laughter.

Here's a typical appearance, again from a Parkinson show.

This time, they found themselves

sitting alongside the boxer John Conteh,

and the conversation kicks off

with a question about Dudley's croaky voice.

Oh, my voice? Yes, I sound a bit like Aldo Ray at the moment.

But I caught the flu in New York, or was it flu?

And my voice has gone all peculiar.

There's not much left of you otherwise.

No, I shouldn't have said that, Dud.

I take that back.

No. He's in terrific shape, isn't he?

Yes, he is. Which part of him is in terrific shape?

-Michael, you're being provocative.

-No, I'm not.

-Don't be cruel.

Not with you two. I mean, you outnumber me, I think.

Let me ask you, were you bullied at school?

Yes, I was, Michael. It was a very sore point with me.

I must go to the doctor.

I...

LAUGHTER

I don't think it was the actual business of being small

that meant I got bullied, although it helped.

But there was a bloke called JW Smith, and I remember getting...

The only time I put boxing gloves on was with JW Smith

and if he were alive...

I won't hit you.

And he punched me severely.

I thought I was going to beat the living daylights out of him.

No, I... I was just set up as one of the bullied people,

and it was very uncomfortable, really.

But I think it's a traditional route for most comedians to go is to...

Were you bullied?

Yes, I was bullied very severely.

I was given up for dead.

LAUGHTER

They brought all the specialists in and...

..I was buried, in fact.

I suffered very, very, very badly at school, Michael,

and I'm sorry you brought it up cos...

-I'm sorry.

-He's going a bit over the top as usual.

It was not a happy time during my life.

-Not a happy time at all.

-It wasn't?

No, I was undisputed light heavyweight coward of...

There was no contest at all.

I wasn't beaten up much, though.

Did you have various ways of avoiding being bullied?

I mean, did you cringe? Were you obsequious?

-Hiding in drawers.

-Hiding in drawers?

-He still does that.

-Hopefully...

LAUGHTER

-Yes.

-Yeah, well, I remember at the age of 13...

-Coughing.

-Coughing is good,

cos people keep away cos they see all this stuff

coming out of your gob.

And of course they stay away, don't they?

Well, there are of course some perverts who love...

They say, "Cough all over me, will you?"

I've met a few of those.

No, seriously, Michael, after all, this is a serious programme...

AUDIENCE MEMBER BLOWS NOSE

Someone was blowing their nose in the audience very loudly.

I started fooling around in class.

That seemed to be the only way to stop it, you know.

Sort of neutralise yourself

and become a plaything of the other people.

And then they don't feel threatened by you.

It's a constant frustration, not to be able to go up to someone and say,

"Listen, any trouble...

"..I'll tear your nose off."

Is that a fantasy of yours?

Oh, I have terrible fantasies of my worst enemies. I still, you know,

like impaling them on railings and reaching down into their mouths

and pulling out their spleens and...

And tying it round the neck and then...

..and pulling out the eyes perhaps one by one.

I have super times thinking about all that sort of thing.

Would you have similar fantasies?

No, I love everybody.

The world is my kingdom and the world loves me and I love the world.

I don't have an enemy in the world.

-You have an enema now and again, though, don't you?

-Yes.

I have to have that cos of...

He's his own worst enemy, you know.

No, take into account the war service that I did.

Oh, I do. I take that into account.

Yes, cos during those troubled times, and let's face it,

-they were troubled times.

-Oh, troubled, weren't they?

When the war was on, weren't they troubled times?

When we looked like losing.

Oh, I thought we'd had it.

-I thought we'd had it.

-When that buzz bomb came across Burnside Road,

-I thought, "This is it."

-It was.

I thought, "This is it."

And it was.

Beyond television, Cook and Moore also ventured

into the world of cinema.

The '60s saw them starring in Bedazzled,

and in the '70s, they delivered their own take

on the world of Sherlock Holmes with the Hound Of The Baskervilles.

Here they are interviewed on location for the programme Film 78.

This version of Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by me,

guided by the spirit voice of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

God rest his soul,

is sort of more authentic than the previous very good versions

done by Basil Rathbone, for example.

Basil Rathbone was very good, and...

Not very good, he was excellent,

but he wasn't true to the spirit of Conan Doyle.

I hope this is true to the spirit of Conan Doyle.

I couldn't play Watson, of course, like Nigel Bruce.

-Not as good.

-Not as good.

He's got the corner on that, you see.

So, I thought I'd have to...

Play it like Bruce Nigel.

-Right.

-Who has not been heard of much, you know.

He's much younger, and...

So I play him a little differently.

Are you there, Mr Taramasalata?

Give one knock for yes, two knocks for no.

TWO KNOCKS

'Dudley is at present made up as my mother.'

'Yes. She's into spiritualism, she's a psychic.'

She's a sidekick, actually.

Yes! She has a great many views on what should be done in the story.

Oh, spirits, show us you are amongst us.

Raise up, O table.

They're really here!

Raise up, O table, make your presence felt!

Raise up, O table!

Oh.

'Dudley symbolises the Victorian period as Mrs Holmes.'

Oh, yes, I think this is the...

People will walk out of the cinema saying,

"That was a Victorian period if ever I saw one."

It's the definitive Victorian film.

Yes. Holmes in this movie does have the natural urges of any male.

And... Thank you, darling.

And he does visit a Victorian equivalent

of the modern massage parlour.

Yes.

-Apart from that...

-Apart from that, well...

..we haven't departed from the original story.

I think there's always going to be an interest in the characters.

They're sort of, you know, really like Hamlet and Cressida,

aren't they?

And Coriolanus and Des O'Connor.

I'd hate to think that this movie was made with the sole purpose of

getting millions and millions of people to see it

and stick money down and go to the cinemas.

Oh, that would be dreadful, wouldn't it?

Awful. It would be dreadful if we ended up being millionaires

-and having to join Michael Caine.

-Yeah, it'd be dreadful, wouldn't it?

I'd rather be in a garret than stuck with Michael Caine

in Hollywood, the Hollywood crowd.

-Right!

-Riffraff!

Bloody Ian La Frenais, Dick Clement

playing cricket on their swimming pools.

-Playing football with Raquel Welch.

-Pathetic.

I'd rather be in a khazi in Dagenham...

-Right.

-..than sell my soul to some producer...

-Right.

-..who says, "Here's £15 million."

You know, you know what my straight answer to him would be.

-Yes.

-That's exactly it, yes.

In the end, the film didn't set Hollywood alight,

but a few years later,

Dudley would with roles in films like 10 and Arthur.

But despite solo international stardom,

the relationship with Peter remained intact.

Here are the pair of them in 1990 on the Wogan show,

talking about one of their classic Pete and Dud sketches.

My favourite sketch, and I think maybe Peter's,

is one that we did when we were Dud and Pete,

these two Cockney characters in an art gallery.

-And we were...

-Talking about this, that and the other.

Talking about this, that and the other,

which we mainly did most weeks.

And I just, I loved the feeling of that one, the intimacy,

which we've never been able to achieve

in our real lives, of course.

LAUGHTER

-And...

-No, don't laugh.

-Are you all right, Terry?

-Don't laugh when you say that,

because it's sad, isn't it?

The only time Dudley and I have ever met has been on television.

I... I've never seen him...

-He looks very nice.

-No, he looks all right, yeah.

Wait a minute, I was going to cue in a piece of what we call VT.

-Oh, well.

-I'm sorry.

-Well, you know...

You know, Pete, I reckon...

I reckon there's a lot of rubbish in this gallery, you know.

-In here?

-Yeah.

-Oh, not only rubbish, Dud, there's a lot of muck about.

I've been looking all over the place for something good.

-Yeah.

-I've been looking for that lovely green gypsy lady,

you know the one what Curpsy Corey done

with the lovely shining skin?

-Where is she? Nowhere.

-Nowhere.

So I went up to the manager.

I said, I got him by the collar, I said, "Here..."

-Yeah?

-I said, "Here..."

Threatening him? You didn't spit sandwich at him, did you?

-Sorry, Pete.

-Blimey.

Sorry about that. No, I said, "Here..."

Yeah, you'll do it again if you're not careful.

-I said, "Where...?"

-HE GUFFAWS

Come on, what'd you say, Dud?

I said, "Where's that bloody Chinese flying horse, then?"

-What'd he say?

-He said, "Get out."

Very nice.

APPLAUSE

Like a sandwich?

You met 20... Well, it's hundreds of years ago...

Right, it was hundreds of years.

500-600 years ago.

Young undergrads.

-Oh, yes.

-Did you hit it off immediately?

Well, we weren't undergrads.

Well, we were, were we? I don't...

I was in my last year at Oxford.

We met rather uneasily in a restaurant.

We all looked at each other. This was Beyond The Fringe.

So, Alan Bennett, you and him and Jonathan...

Jonathan Miller and Dudley.

We all sat down and peered at each other

and didn't really know what to do.

Yeah. Did you like the cut of his jib then?

Were you attracted to him?

-I thought he was a frightfully attractive young man.

-Yes.

I was at Cambridge and I thought, "Well,

"this looks somebody who is fairly easy to get on with."

-Yes.

-And we went off into the night.

Did you? And I bet you...

-Came back for rehearsal next day.

-I bet you took a smack to him as well.

I certainly did. I thought,

"Here's an upper-class geek if ever I saw one."

And...

Straight down from the Foreign Office.

Yes, we got on very well.

I mean, he... Actually, Peter was very easy to get on with and...

..I think, of all of us, he was the most urbane and, sort of,

calm in those days. Of course, things have changed, you know.

-Things have changed greatly.

-Whirling dervish now.

Yes. Do you think he's gone to the bad?

Has he gone to the bad? No. No.

No more than anybody else has.

-Yes.

-No more than you have, Terry!

Yeah, you don't think... Dudley hasn't improved much either, has he?

I think Dudley has improved.

-Has he improved?

-Oh, yes.

You should have seen him 25 years ago!

The years have been kind to him, haven't they?

Certainly. He looks better by the second.

-Considering the life he's led.

-Hmm.

Yeah, it's been a bit outre.

It's been a bit, you know...

But I've survived.

Yes. I took the blows.

-I...

-You gave the shows!

I did it my way.

Hello, sailor.

We'll end now in the same way that Peter and Dudley ended their shows -

at the piano, in perfect harmony,

singing their always aptly titled song Goodbye.

APPLAUSE

-# Now it's time to say goodbye

-Goodbye!

-# Now's the time to yield a sigh

-Oh, yield that sigh, baby

# Now's the time to we-e-end... #

HE COUGHS

# Our way-ee!

# Until we met again! #

It's not going well.

# Some sunny day... # It's going wonderfully.

BOTH: # Goodbye, goodbye

# We're leaving you, scoob-a-dye

# Goodbye, we wish you fond goodbye

# Farta-ta-ta, farta-ta-ta

# Goodbye, goodbye

# We're leaving you, scoob-a-dye

# Goodbye, we wish you fond goodbye

# Farta-ta-ta-ta

# La-la-la-la-la-la... #

THEY COUGH AND SPLUTTER

LOUD COUGHING CONTINUES

-You feeling all right, mother?

-Fine, thank you.

I'm feeling terribly well indeed.

# Ebony, a-dib-dab-dooby, biddidy-bash

# A-deeb-dab-dooby, doodily-down... #

MUSIC FADES OUT

I don't know what you're thinking then!