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64-405: "The quartet of Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller created a boom in satirical comedy with Beyond the Fringe , played thousands of shows on both sides of the Atlantic, and enjoyed huge solo success." — The Telegraph , “The day that sparked the satire boom”. The satire boom was the output of a generation of British satirical writers, journalists and performers at

128-449: A hit at the Fringe a few years earlier. Bassett also chose Jonathan Miller , who had been a Footlights star in 1957. Miller recommended Cook. Bennett and Miller were already pursuing careers in academia and medicine respectively, but Cook had an agent, having written a West End revue for Kenneth Williams . Cook's agent negotiated a higher weekly fee for him, but by the time the agent's fee

192-490: A marionette to a hand puppet, and he became, really, a spirit of Britain — a subversive maverick who defies authority, a kind of puppet equivalent to our political cartoons ." In early 19th century England, pantomime acquired its present form which includes slapstick comedy and featured the first mainstream clown Joseph Grimaldi , while comedy routines also featured heavily in British music hall theatre which became popular in

256-648: A minimal set, looking at events of the day and, with Shakespeare, the past. It effectively represented the views and disappointments of the first generation of British people to grow up after World War II , and gave voice to a sense of the loss of national purpose with the end of the British Empire . Although all of the cast contributed material, the most often quoted pieces were those by Cook, many of which had appeared before in his Cambridge Footlights revues. The show broke new ground with Peter Cook's impression of then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan ; on one occasion, this

320-650: A number of musical items in the show, using Dudley Moore's music, most famously an arrangement of the Colonel Bogey March which resists Moore's repeated attempts to bring it to an end. The show prefigured the Satire Boom of the 1960s. Without it, there might not have been either That Was the Week That Was or Private Eye , the satirical magazine which originated at the same time, that partially survived due to financial support from Peter Cook, and that served as

384-532: A performance on 10 February 1963. The show continued in New York, with most of the original cast, until 1964, when Paxton Whitehead replaced Miller, while the London version continued with a different cast until 1966. The revue was widely considered to be ahead of its time, both in its unapologetic willingness to debunk figures of authority, and by virtue of its inherently surrealistic comedic vein. Humiliation of authority

448-473: A result, much of their art was intentionally amusing. A famous example is Marcel Duchamp 's Fountain (1917), an inverted urinal signed "R. Mutt". This became one of the most famous and influential pieces of art in history, and one of the earliest examples of the found object movement. It is also a joke, relying on the inversion of the item's function as expressed by its title as well as its incongruous presence in an art exhibition. The advent of cinema in

512-535: A subversion of audience's expectations, so that amusement is founded on unpredictability , separate from a logical analysis of the situation. The humour derived gets its appeal from the ridiculousness and unlikeliness of the situation. The genre has roots in Surrealism in the arts. Surreal humour is the effect of illogic and absurdity being used for humorous effect. Under such premises, people can identify precursors and early examples of surreal humour at least since

576-464: A sympathetic character. Aristotle divides comedy into three categories or subgenres: farce , romantic comedy , and satire . On the other hand, Plato taught that comedy is a destruction to the self. He believed that it produces an emotion that overrides rational self-control and learning. In The Republic , he says that the guardians of the state should avoid laughter, "for ordinarily when one abandons himself to violent laughter, his condition provokes

640-615: A version starring Kevin Bishop as Moore, Tom Goodman-Hill as Cook, Fergus Craig as Alan Bennett and Colin Hoult as Jonathan Miller. It subsequently embarked on a nationwide tour. The creation, performance and aftermath of the show is covered in the 2004 film Not Only But Always . Good Evening , Roy Smiles' play about the Beyond The Fringe team was broadcast on Radio 4 in 2008, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dudley Moore. In 2017, Beyond

704-460: A violent reaction." Plato says comedy should be tightly controlled if one wants to achieve the ideal state. Also in Poetics , Aristotle defined comedy as one of the original four genres of literature . The other three genres are tragedy , epic poetry , and lyric poetry . Literature, in general, is defined by Aristotle as a mimesis , or imitation of life. Comedy is the third form of literature, being

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768-454: Is characterized by a form of humor that includes darker aspects of human behavior or human nature. Similarly scatological humor , sexual humor, and race humor create comedy by violating social conventions or taboos in comic ways, which can often be taken as offensive by the subjects of the joke. A comedy of manners typically takes as its subject a particular part of society (usually upper-class society) and uses humor to parody or satirize

832-789: Is not only a genius, he is the man who originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him." American vaudeville emerged in the 1880s and remained popular until the 1930s, and featured comedians such as W. C. Fields , Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers . Surreal humour (also known as 'absurdist humour'), or 'surreal comedy', is a form of humour predicated on deliberate violations of causal reasoning, producing events and behaviours that are obviously illogical . Constructions of surreal humour tend to involve bizarre juxtapositions, incongruity, non-sequiturs , irrational or absurd situations and expressions of nonsense . The humour arises from

896-425: Is otherwise a serious commentary on the state of foreign relations serves to frame the segment comically, creating a serious tone underlying the comedic agenda presented by Stewart. Comedy may be divided into multiple genres based on the source of humor, the method of delivery, and the context in which it is delivered. The different forms of comedy often overlap, and most comedy can fit into multiple genres. Some of

960-671: The Australian comedian Paul Hogan , famous for Crocodile Dundee . Other centres of creative comic activity have been the cinema of Hong Kong , Bollywood , and French farce . American television has also been an influential force in world comedy: with American series like M*A*S*H , Seinfeld and The Simpsons achieving large followings around the world. British television comedy also remains influential, with quintessential works including Fawlty Towers , Monty Python , Dad's Army , Blackadder , and The Office . Australian satirist Barry Humphries , whose comic creations include

1024-490: The Beyond the Fringe team said that they were not ridiculing the efforts of those involved in the war, but were challenging the subsequent media portrayal of them. Beyond the Fringe was a forerunner to British television programmes That Was the Week That Was , At Last the 1948 Show , and Monty Python's Flying Circus . As with the established comedy revue, it was a series of satirical sketches and musical pieces using

1088-619: The Edinburgh Fringe in previous years. He said that the Festival should put on a late-night revue "to beat The Fringe at its own game." By 1960, the Festival was so firmly established that "it required for its health some good-humoured self-mockery." Ponsonby's assistant, John "Johnny" Bassett , recommended Dudley Moore , who had played with Bassett in a jazz band while at university in Oxford . Moore in turn recommended Alan Bennett , who had had

1152-541: The Middle Ages , the term expanded to include narrative poems with happy endings. It is in this sense that Dante used the term in the title of his poem, La Commedia . As time progressed, the word came more and more to be associated with any sort of performance intended to cause laughter. During the Middle Ages, the term "comedy" became synonymous with satire , and later with humour in general. Aristotle's Poetics

1216-495: The Suez Crisis which effectively marked the end of the British Empire as a great power , an upper middle class generation with public school and Oxbridge educations who had grown up with certain expectations—of following a career in colonial administration or the civil service —suddenly found themselves surplus. Peter Cook had already entered for a Foreign Office entrance exam, before his stage career took off. At

1280-571: The Three Stooges , Abbott and Costello , Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis , Bob Hope and Phyllis Diller during the mid-20th century, to performers like George Carlin , Bill Cosby , Joan Rivers , Robin Williams , and Eddie Murphy toward the end of the century. Hollywood attracted many international talents like the British comics Peter Sellers , Dudley Moore and Sacha Baron Cohen , Canadian comics Dan Aykroyd , Jim Carrey , and Mike Myers , and

1344-521: The West End . Booker ends the period with the cancellation of the television series That Was The Week That Was , and the closing of the Establishment Club. "The 1960s satire boom opened up the way for a fresh, inventive generation of young comedy writer-performers to flourish on TV and to take comedy in a new and exciting direction." —BBC profile for Monty Python's Flying Circus . The boom

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1408-457: The "art of reprehension", and made no reference to light and cheerful events, or to the troubling beginnings and happy endings associated with classical Greek comedy. After the Latin translations of the 12th century , the term "comedy" gained a more general meaning in medieval literature . In the late 20th century, many scholars preferred to use the term laughter to refer to the whole gamut of

1472-568: The 1850s. British comedians who honed their skills in music hall sketches include Charlie Chaplin , Stan Laurel and Dan Leno . English music hall comedian and theatre impresario Fred Karno developed a form of sketch comedy without dialogue in the 1890s, and Chaplin and Laurel were among the comedians who worked for his company. Karno was a pioneer of slapstick , and in his biography, Laurel stated, "Fred Karno didn't teach Charlie [Chaplin] and me all we know about comedy. He just taught us most of it". Film producer Hal Roach stated: "Fred Karno

1536-511: The 19th century, such as Lewis Carroll 's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass , which both use illogic and absurdity ( hookah -smoking caterpillars , croquet matches using live flamingos as mallets, etc.) for humorous effect. Many of Edward Lear 's children stories and poems contain nonsense and are basically surreal in approach. For example, The Story of

1600-521: The Broadway performance was said to have stood up and shouted 'rotters!' at a sketch he found distasteful, before apparently sitting down again and enjoying the remainder of the show, while another, at the first performance in Edinburgh, allegedly stood up and declared that the 'young bounders don't know the first thing about it!' and promptly left the auditorium. In response to these negative audience reactions,

1664-553: The Four Little Children Who Went Round the World (1871) is filled with contradictory statements and odd images intended to provoke amusement, such as the following: After a time they saw some land at a distance; and when they came to it, they found it was an island made of water quite surrounded by earth. Besides that, it was bordered by evanescent isthmuses with a great Gulf-stream running about all over it, so that it

1728-578: The Fringe was not owned by the BBC, however, the quartet enjoyed relative carte blanche. The only protocol they were obliged to adhere to was that, by law, their scripts had to be sent to the Lord Chamberlain for approval prior to performance, a requirement abolished in 1968. Most specifically, its lampooning of the British war effort in a sketch titled "The Aftermyth of War" was scorned by some war veterans for its supposed insensitivity. One British visitor to

1792-730: The Fringe was recreated for an episode of the Netflix TV series The Crown in which Prime Minister Macmillan is in attendance and singled out for abuse by Peter Cook (performed by Patrick Warner.) Comedy Satire and political satire use comedy to portray people or social institutions as ridiculous or corrupt, thus alienating their audience from the object of their humor. Parody subverts popular genres and forms, critiquing those forms without necessarily condemning them. Other forms of comedy include screwball comedy , which derives its humor largely from bizarre, surprising (and improbable) situations or characters, and black comedy , which

1856-478: The National Touring Company took it on a nationwide tour for six months as Beyond the Fringe '65 under the auspices of Alexander H. Cohen, with the cast consisting of Bob Cessna , Donald Cullen, Joel Fabiani , and James Valentine . Slight changes were made to adapt the show for American audiences, for instance the opening number (discussing America) was retitled "Home Thoughts from Abroad". The show

1920-659: The Neapolitan stock character of Pulcinella . The figure who later became Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England in 1662. Punch and Judy are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy — often provoking shocked laughter — and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch. Appearing at a significant period in British history, professor Glyn Edwards states: "[Pulcinella] went down particularly well with Restoration British audiences, fun-starved after years of Puritanism . We soon changed Punch's name, transformed him from

1984-573: The United Kingdom is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Beyond the Fringe Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Alan Bennett , Peter Cook , Jonathan Miller , and Dudley Moore . It debuted at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival and went on to play in London's West End and then in America, both on tour and on New York 's Broadway in

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2048-417: The aims. "Comedy", in its Elizabethan usage, had a very different meaning from modern comedy. A Shakespearean comedy is one that has a happy ending, usually involving marriages between the unmarried characters, and a tone and style that is more light-hearted than Shakespeare's other plays. The Punch and Judy show has roots in the 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte . The figure of Punch derives from

2112-518: The beginning of the 1960s. The satire boom is often regarded as having begun with the first performance of Beyond the Fringe on 22 August 1960 and ending around December 1963 with the cancellation of the BBC TV show That Was The Week That Was . The figures most closely identified with the satire boom are Peter Cook , John Bird , John Fortune , David Frost , Dudley Moore , Bernard Levin and Richard Ingrams . Many figures who found celebrity through

2176-563: The behavior and mannerisms of its members. Romantic comedy is a popular genre that depicts burgeoning romance in humorous terms and focuses on the foibles of those who are falling in love. Dean Rubin says the word "comedy" is derived from the Classical Greek κωμῳδία kōmōidía , which is a compound of κῶμος kômos (revel) and ᾠδή ōidḗ (singing; ode). The adjective "comic" (Greek κωμικός kōmikós), which strictly means that which relates to comedy is, in modern usage, generally confined to

2240-462: The charitable attitude towards people that is required for purposes of persuasion and co-operation, but at the same time maintains our shrewdness concerning the simplicities of 'cashing in. ' " The purpose of the comic frame is to satirize a given circumstance and promote change by doing so. The comic frame makes fun of situations and people, while simultaneously provoking thought. The comic frame does not aim to vilify in its analysis, but rather, rebuke

2304-827: The circus clown also continued, with such as Bozo the Clown in the United States and Oleg Popov in Russia. Radio provided new possibilities — with Britain producing the influential surreal humour of the Goon Show after the Second World War. The Goons' influence spread to the American radio and recording troupe the Firesign Theatre . American cinema has produced a great number of globally renowned comedy artists, from Laurel and Hardy ,

2368-483: The civilization of a country ... I take to be the flourishing of the Comic idea and Comedy, and the test of true Comedy is that it shall awaken thoughtful laughter." Laughter is said to be the cure for being sick. Studies show that people who laugh more often get sick less. American literary theorist Kenneth Burke writes that the "comic frame" in rhetoric is "neither wholly euphemistic, nor wholly debunking—hence it provides

2432-486: The comic, in order to avoid the use of ambiguous and problematically defined genres such as the grotesque , irony , and satire . Starting from 425 BCE, Aristophanes , a comic play and satirical author of the Ancient Greek Theater , wrote 40 comedies, 11 of which survive. Aristophanes developed his type of comedy from the earlier satyr plays , which were often highly obscene . The only surviving examples of

2496-554: The early 1960s. Hugely successful, it is widely regarded as seminal to the " satire boom ", the rise of satirical comedy in 1960s Britain. The idea for Beyond the Fringe came from Robert Ponsonby , who was the director of the Edinburgh International Festival from 1956 to 1960. Ponsonby's idea was to bring together the best parts of the revues staged by the Cambridge Footlights and The Oxford Revue at

2560-715: The early years of BBC 2 , took its title from this production. It consisted of performances of material that was popular in theatrical revue before the advent of Beyond the Fringe . The show's success was not limited to the UK. In 1962, it also opened in South Africa. Next it arrived in the US. First the Broadway Company opened on 27 October 1962, then it was performed by the National Company in 1963. Subsequently, opening on 8 October 1964,

2624-418: The housewife and "gigastar" Dame Edna Everage , for his delivery of Dadaist and absurdist humour to millions, was described by biographer Anne Pender in 2010 as not only "the most significant theatrical figure of our time ... [but] the most significant comedian to emerge since Charlie Chaplin ". By 200 BC, in ancient Sanskrit drama , Bharata Muni 's Natya Shastra defined humour ( hāsyam ) as one of

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2688-413: The late 19th century, and later radio and television in the 20th century broadened the access of comedians to the general public. Charlie Chaplin , through silent film, became one of the best-known faces on Earth. The silent tradition lived on well into the late 20th century through mime artists like Marcel Marceau , and the slapstick comedy of artists like Rowan Atkinson (as Mr. Bean ). The tradition of

2752-406: The model for the later American Spy magazine. Cook and Moore formed a comedy duo and appeared in the popular television show Not Only... But Also , and the 1967 film Bedazzled . Cook also launched his club, The Establishment , around this time. Many of the members of Monty Python recall being inspired by Beyond the Fringe . The retrospective show Before the Fringe , broadcast during

2816-400: The most divorced from a true mimesis. Tragedy is the truest mimesis, followed by epic poetry, comedy, and lyric poetry. The genre of comedy is defined by a certain pattern according to Aristotle's definition. Comedies begin with low or base characters seeking insignificant aims and end with some accomplishment of the aims which either lightens the initial baseness or reveals the insignificance of

2880-441: The nine nava rasas , or principle rasas (emotional responses), which can be inspired in the audience by bhavas , the imitations of emotions that the actors perform. Each rasa was associated with a specific bhavas portrayed on stage. In the case of humour, it was associated with mirth ( hasya ). The phenomena connected with laughter and that which provokes it have been carefully investigated by psychologists. They agree

2944-418: The origins of comedy are obscure because it was not treated seriously from its inception. However, comedy had its own Muse : Thalia . Aristotle taught that comedy was generally positive for society, since it brings forth happiness, which for Aristotle was the ideal state, the final goal in any activity. For Aristotle, a comedy did not need to involve sexual humor. A comedy is about the fortunate rise of

3008-497: The predominant characteristics are incongruity or contrast in the object and shock or emotional seizure on the part of the subject. It has also been held that the feeling of superiority is an essential factor: thus Thomas Hobbes speaks of laughter as a "sudden glory". Modern investigators have paid much attention to the origin both of laughter and of smiling, as well as the development of the "play instinct" and its emotional expression. George Meredith said that "One excellent test of

3072-630: The press in March 1960 that the show would "be anti-establishment, anti-capital punishment, anti-colour bar and anti-1960. But it will be all very serious stuff, sharp, bitter and to the point." The show's run in Edinburgh was immensely successful. Before beginning its run in the West End, the show had great success at the Cambridge Arts Theatre, but a brief run in Brighton garnered a lukewarm response. When

3136-541: The revue transferred to the Fortune Theatre in London, opening in early May 1961, in a revised production by Donald Albery and William Donaldson and directed by Eleanor Fazan , it became a true sensation. This was helped in large part by a favourable review by Kenneth Tynan . In 1962, the show transferred to the John Golden Theatre in New York, with its original cast. President John F. Kennedy attended

3200-428: The same role. Self-deprecation is a technique of comedy used by many comedians who focus on their misfortunes and foibles in order to entertain. Stand-up comedy is a mode of comic performance in which the performer addresses the audience directly, usually speaking in their own person rather than as a dramatic character . The deliberate use by Menard of the term 'le rire' rather than 'l'humour' reflects accurately

3264-439: The same time the emergence of the " angry young men " and " kitchen sink realism " in drama were signs that British culture was increasingly dominated by the concerns of the "common man". The Labour Party was proving to be an ineffective opposition to a patrician Conservative government. The satire-boom generation were in general apolitical or had (at that time) left-of-centre tendencies. This article relating to television in

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3328-494: The satire boom went on to establish subsequently more serious careers as writers including Alan Bennett ( drama ), Jonathan Miller ( polymathic ), and Paul Foot ( investigative journalism ). In his book The Neophiliacs , Christopher Booker , who as a founding editor of Private Eye was a central figure of the satire boom, charts the years 1959 to 1964. He begins with the Cambridge Footlights student revue The Last Laugh written by Bird and Cook; it later transferred to

3392-441: The satyr plays are by Euripides , which are much later examples and not representative of the genre. In ancient Greece, comedy originated in bawdy and ribald songs or recitations apropos of phallic processions and fertility festivals or gatherings. Around 335 BCE, Aristotle , in his work Poetics , stated that comedy originated in phallic processions and the light treatment of the otherwise base and ugly. He also adds that

3456-449: The sense of "laughter-provoking". Of this, the word came into modern usage through the Latin comoedia and Italian commedia and has, over time, passed through various shades of meaning. The Greeks and Romans confined their use of the word "comedy" to descriptions of stage-plays with happy endings. Aristotle defined comedy as an imitation of men worse than the average (where tragedy

3520-659: The stupidity and foolery of those involved in the circumstances. For example, on The Daily Show , Jon Stewart uses the "comic frame" to intervene in political arguments, often offering crude humor in sudden contrast to serious news. In a segment on President Obama 's trip to China, Stewart remarks on America's debt to the Chinese government while also having a weak relationship with the country. After depicting this dismal situation, Stewart shifts to speak directly to President Obama, calling upon him to "shine that turd up." For Stewart and his audience, introducing coarse language into what

3584-524: The subgenres of comedy are farce , comedy of manners , burlesque , and satire . Some comedy apes certain cultural forms: for instance, parody and satire often imitate the conventions of the genre they are parodying or satirizing. For example, in the United States, parodies of newspapers and television news include The Onion , and The Colbert Report ; in Australia, shows such as Kath & Kim , Utopia , and Shaun Micallef's Mad As Hell perform

3648-455: Was an imitation of men better than the average). However, the characters portrayed in comedies were not worse than average in every way, only insofar as they are Ridiculous, which is a species of the Ugly. The Ridiculous may be defined as a mistake or deformity not productive of pain or harm to others; the mask, for instance, that excites laughter is something ugly and distorted without causing pain. In

3712-481: Was deducted Cook actually earned less than the others from the initial run. The majority of the sketches were by Cook and were largely based on material written for other revues. Among the entirely new material were "The End of the World", "TVPM" and "The Great Train Robbery". Cook and Moore revived some of the sketches on their later television and stage shows, most famously the two-hander " One Leg Too Few ". Miller told

3776-515: Was driven by well-connected graduates from first the University of Cambridge , and then the University of Oxford . BT states, "The ground-breaking revue Beyond the Fringe , starring Oxbridge graduates Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore, opened at the Fortune Theatre, London in 1961 – and started something of a revolution in humour." Booker argues that, with the response to

3840-441: Was perfectly beautiful, and contained only a single tree, 503 feet high. In the early 20th century, several avant-garde movements, including the dadaists , surrealists , and futurists , began to argue for an art that was random, jarring and illogical. The goals of these movements were in some sense serious, and they were committed to undermining the solemnity and self-satisfaction of the contemporary artistic establishment . As

3904-465: Was performed with Macmillan in the audience, and Cook added an ad lib ridiculing Macmillan for turning up to watch. The show is credited with giving many other performers the courage to be satirical and more improvisational in their manner, and broke the conventions of not lampooning the Royal Family or the government of the day. Shakespearean drama was another target of their comedy. There were also

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3968-502: Was revived in slightly altered form in Los Angeles in 2000 and 2001 by Joseph Dunn's ReEstablishment Theater to critical acclaim. The four original members of Beyond the Fringe feature prominently as characters in the play Pete and Dud: Come Again , by Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde . Appropriately, that comedy-drama had a sellout run at the 2005 Edinburgh Festival Fringe before transferring to London's West End at The Venue, in 2006, in

4032-603: Was something only previously delved into in The Goon Show and, arguably, Hancock's Half Hour , with such parliamentarians as Sir Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan coming under special scrutiny—although the BBC were predisposed to frown upon it. Macmillan—according to Cook—was not particularly fond of the slurred caricature and charade of senile forgetfulness (marked by a failure to pronounce 'Conservative Party' coherently) handed down on him in Cook's impersonation. Since Beyond

4096-409: Was translated into Arabic in the medieval Islamic world , where it was elaborated upon by Arabic writers and Islamic philosophers , such as Abu Bishr , and his pupils Al-Farabi , Avicenna , and Averroes . They disassociated comedy from Greek dramatic representation and instead identified it with Arabic poetic themes and forms, such as hija (satirical poetry). They viewed comedy as simply

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