The Complete Beyond The Fringe (1961 Original London Cast) at Music Hills.com

Music CD 1

Steppes In The Right Direction - The Cast
Royal Box - Dudley Moore
Man Bites God - The Cast
Let's Face It - Alan Bennett
Bollard - The Cast
The Heat-Death Of The Universe - Jonathan Miller
Deutscher Chansons - Dudley Moore (Introduced by Jonathan Miller)
The Sadder And Wiser Beaver - Alan Bennett
Words...And Things - Alan Bennett
Tvpm - Peter Cook
And The Same To You - Dudley Moore
Aftermyth Of War - The Cast

Music CD 2

Civil War - The Cast
Real Class - The Cast
Little Miss Britten - Dudley Moore (Introduced by Jonathan Miller)
The Suspense Is Killing Me - The Cast
Porn Shop - Jonathan Miller
The Death Of Lord Nelson - Jonathan Miller
Frank Speaking - Alan Bennett
Bloody Rhondda Mine - Dudley Moore
Black Equals White - Jonathan Miller
Sitting On The Bench - Peter Cook
Bread Alone - The Cast
Take A Pew - Allan Bennett
So That's The Way You Like It - The Cast
The End Of The World - The Cast

Music CD 3

Bollard - The Cast
Take A Pew - Alan Bennett
Aftermyth Of War - The Cast
Sitting On The Bench - Peter Cook
Portraits From Memory (Bertrand Russell) - Jonathan Miller
The End Of The World - The Cast
Home Thoughts From Abroad - The Cast
The English Way Of Death - Alan Bennett
The Weill Song - Dudley Moore
The Royal Box - Alan Bennett
One Leg Too Few - Dudley Moore
Two English Songs: Little Miss Britten/Old Meg She Was A Gypsy - Dudley Moore
Lord Cobbold/The Duke (Studio Five Interviews) - Jonathan Miller
Real Class - The Cast
A Piece Of My Mind (The Heat-Death Of The Universe) - Paxton Whitehead As Jonathan Miller
The Great Train Robbery - Alan Bennett

Music reviews of The Complete Beyond The Fringe (1961 Original London Cast)

Music Review: Some of the funniest stuff ever committed to vinyl
Rating: 5 Stars

It's all very well (and true) to say that this stuff is still funny after forty years. It's more useful to put yourself back into the mindset of a 1961 audience, utterly unprepared for such a comic assault on the sacred cows of post-war British culture: dodgily reverential productions of Shakespeare; dreary and self-aggrandising prime-ministerial broadcasts by then PM Harold Macmillan; a devastating swipe at the cheery platitudes of governmental advice on what to do during a nuclear attack (basically, hide inside a brown paper bag); a brutal demolition of piously cliched movies about the sacrifices of world war 2 - these lads dished it out in spades. The laughter you hear on the soundtrack is not the cosy laughter of an audience hearing what it likes to hear, it's the guilty and almost hysterical laughter of an audience having its worst fears and suspicions confirmed and provoked.

Fair enough, Dudley Moore (RIP) went on to make some dodgy movies. Jonathan Miller did some fine work in the theatre and in opera, but nothing quite as cutting-edge as here. Alan Bennett became an English (not British) institution. Peter Cook ended up with a reputation as the Guy Who Never Fulfilled His Promise - but none of these assessments are accurate. Between the talents of the four of them, they produced a comedy that has seldom been lived up to. They truly were the Bill Hickses of 60s England. As Michael Frayn points out in his excellent introductory essay, it's because they made the audience laugh at their own prejudices. Few have done so much, and they never slacked. (One of the sketches from the 1964 Broadway production, included here, confirms this, in a sardonic assessment of American culture and how-the-show-is-likely-to-go-down-there, still true today.)

This is great comedy. We shouldn't imitate its content - we should strive to reach for the level of insight and the accuracy of target that they met. Mind you, it's still damn funny. My personal faves are the civil defence sketch and Bennett's stunningly vacuous sermon "Take A Pew", chunks of which I know off by heart. Good comedy is never cosy, and while this may seem like we've heard it before, bear in mind that nobody had ever quite done anything like this at the time - or, anyway, not so successfully. Genius.