Peter Cook

:This article is about the British comedian Peter Cook. For other people called Peter Cook, see Peter Cook (disambiguation).

Not Only... But Also and other '60s television

In 1962 the BBC commissioned a pilot for a television series of satirical sketches based on The Establishment Club but it was not picked up straight away and Cook and the other regulars went to New York for a year. When he returned Cook discovered that the pilot had been refashioned as That Was The Week That Was and had made a star out of David Frost. The 1960s satire boom was coming to a close and Cook quipped that Britain would "sink into the sea under the weight of its own giggling".

Related Topics:
Television - That Was The Week That Was - David Frost - Satire boom

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Cook married the socially connected Wendy Snowden in 1963 with whom he had two daughters. The marriage ended in divorce in 1970 due to Cook's various affairs.

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Along with others such as Eleanor Bron, John Bird, and John Fortune, he broadened the scope of television comedy and pushed out the hitherto restricted boundaries of the BBC.

Related Topics:
Eleanor Bron - John Bird - John Fortune - Television - BBC

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Peter Cook's first regular television spot was on Granada_Television's Braden Beat with Bernard Braden, where he featured perhaps his most enduring comic character, the static, dour, and monotone E. L. Wisty.

Related Topics:
Granada_Television - Bernard Braden - E. L. Wisty

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His comedy partnership with Dudley Moore, led to the popular and critically feted television show Not Only... But Also. Using few props, and with musical interludes performed by Moore, they created a new style of dry absurdist television which found a place in the mainstream. Here Cook showcased characters like Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling and Pete and Dud. Other memorable sketches include "Superthunderstingcar", a send-up of the popular Gerry Anderson marionette TV shows and Cook's parody of film star Greta Garbo.

Related Topics:
Comedy partnership - Dudley Moore - Not Only... But Also - Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling - Pete and Dud - Gerry Anderson - Greta Garbo

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Although the show is now recognised as one of the classics of TV comedy, the BBC erased most of the videotapes of the series. This was common UK television practice at the time, when agreements with actors' and musicians' unions meant that only a certain number of repeats within a limited timescale were permitted, and the VHS or DVD home sales market was decades away. As videotape was expensive and took up space to store, tapes would often be wiped and re-used.

Related Topics:
VHS - DVD

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When Cook learned the series was to be destroyed he offered to buy the tapes of the series from the BBC but was refused due to copyright. Cook then offered to buy new tapes for the BBC so that they would not need to overtape but this was also turned down by management as there was no established procedure at the BBC for this.

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Of the series, eight out of twenty-two complete episodes survive. Some of the soundtracks, which were commercially released on record, also exist. The BBC recovered some of the episodes by approaching television networks in other countries and buying back copies which had not been subjected to such stringent destruction policies. The surviving episodes comprise the entire first series with the exception of the fifth and seventh episodes; the first and last episodes of the second series; and the Christmas special. No complete episodes of the third series survive, but various film inserts do still exist. A compilation of six half-hour programmes, The Best Of... What's Left Of... Not Only... But Also was shown on television in 1990, and highlights were released on VHS.

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In 1968 Cook and Moore switched to Lew Grade's ATV to produce a series of four one hour programmes Goodbye Again based on the "Pete and Dud" characters. Cook and Moore knew they were the rationale for the series and as a result ignored suggestions from the series Director and other cast - as a result sketches were often drawn out to fill the running time. Cook would also rely on prompt boards and as a result garbled parts of the script, forcing Moore to ad-lib. The series does contain some notable items including a reprise of the Pete and Dud 'Greta Garbo' routine and a sketch in which Cook and Moore mostly play themselves discussing the breakdowns of their respective marriages. The series was not a popular success due in some part to the ITV listings magazine TV Times being suspended due to a strike. John Cleese was a supporting cast member and elements of the series can be seen in the early Monty Python series of the next year.

Related Topics:
1968 - Lew Grade - ATV - TV Times - John Cleese - Monty Python

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Both Peter Cook and Dudley Moore acted in films, and Cook worked with Moore in such films as The Wrong Box (1966). Their best work on film was probably the cult comedy Bedazzled (1967), now widely regarded as a classic. Directed by Stanley Donen, it was co-written by Cook and Moore and starred Cook as George Spigot (The Devil) who tempts frustrated short-order cook Stanley Moon (Moore) with the promise of gaining his heart's desire -- the love of the unattainable Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron) -- in exchange for his soul, but repeatedly tricks him in a variety of ways. The film features cameo appearances by Barry Humphries ('Envy') and Raquel Welch ('Lust'). Moore's trio backed Cook on the theme, a parodic anti-love song, which Cook delivers in a monotonous, deadpan voice, and which includes his classic putdown "You fill me with inertia". Moore went on to Hollywood stardom in the 1970s and 1980s, which prompted occasional barbed comments from Cook.

Related Topics:
Film - 1966 - Bedazzled - 1967 - Stanley Donen - Hollywood - 1970s - 1980s

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