We had dinner last Friday night with friends and we got round to talking about Alan Bennett who had been on the South Bank show the previous week.
That led onto a discussion about comedy shows that Alan Bennett had been in before. One item that I remembered was a ‘mock sermon’ that Alan Bennett had delivered during a sketch in one of the great ‘Beyond the Fringe’ (BTF) reviews of the early 60’s – yes that long ago!
Needless to say I’d lost track on when and what the ‘mock sermon’ was about. I did once have a BBC LP of one of the shows when I was in the Royal Navy, (I used to present some programs for the on board radio stations), but somewhere along the way, it got misplaced. Shame, as I see that the original LPs are selling for around US$50.00!!
However, over to another Google session and yes, within 30 seconds, not only have I found the text of the sketch. But I also stumbled across a Podcast made last year at Podcast.net of the review that the whole BTF team (Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Dudley Moore & Peter Cook) made in New York in 1964, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the list to find the show, which also includes many more BTF items such as ‘The Few’ and ‘One Leg Too Few’ as well as the ‘mock sermon’. Still very funny today and when you look at the timing, quite a few year before Monty Python and I would say, BTF set down quite a few of the ground rules for all comedy that was to come.
My searching also found that you can purchase a CD box set of 3 CDs at either Amazon.co.uk or the Guardian which includes all of the most popular recordings, that’s one for me!
Beasley's Place 