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| Dudley Moore, Peter Cook. |
GOOD EVENING [Revue/British] A: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore; D: Jerry Adler; DS: Robert Randolph; P: Alexander H. Cohen and Bernard Delfont; T: Plymouth Theatre; 11/14/73-11/30/74 (483)
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| Peter Cook, Dudley Moore. |
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, original members of the highly
popular, four-man British comedy-revue called Beyond the Fringe, which kept Broadway audiences in stitches after
it arrived in 1962, here did without Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett to create
another iconoclastic comedy-revue, with music, called Beyond the Fridge in its London production. Extremely successful,
it had New York audiences laughing for over a year. Clive Barnes rejoiced: “I started laughing at
the beginning, and I ended laughing at the end. . . . These two men are mad,
funny and truthful.”
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| Dudley Moore, Peter Cook. |
The tall, lanky, serious Cook was a perfect foil for the
diminutive, irreverent Moore as they raced through a series of sketches on a
variety of zany subjects, all of which they had written themselves. Their bits
included one about a one-legged actor auditioning for Tarzan; another about a
man who runs a gourmet restaurant serving only frogs and peaches; and so on. John
Simon said the duo “work together like clapper and bell, and what rings out is
to laughter what Big Ben is to clocks.”
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| Peter Cook, Dudley Moore. |
Moore, not only a gifted comic actor, but an excellent
pianist, performed several highly diverting piano routines, including one where
he was unable to end a concerto and pleaded silently for help from the
audience. A couple of pieces did not quite work, but the show was otherwise
very effective, providing satire of a decidedly adult nature. Cook and Moore
played on a basically empty stage, notable only for a grand piano.
Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were appreciated enough to earn
a special Tony for “a unique contribution to the theatre of comedy.”