Before the Fringe

To understand the particular genius of Peter Cook you have to transport yourself back to the late summer of 1960 and imagine a time when it was indeed a shocking thing to imitate the Prime Minister of the day on stage and with comic intent. Cook was then an undergraduate, the son of a district commissioner; and himself on course for a promising career in the Foreign Office. His imitation of Harold Macmillan's final broadcast of the 1959 election campaign changed not only his own life, but the next 35 years of British humour. "I explained to the American President Britain's role in the world as an honest broker," Cook intoned languidly, a globe his only prop, "He agreed with me that no nation could be more honest. I agreed with him no nation could be broker." Mild stuff now. But then was then. And then it was enough to lure a flock of West End grandees to Edinburgh and Tom Lehrer to the Arts Theatre, Cambridge, to find out what was going on. They found the would-be diplomat teamed up with a lanky would-be doctor, a short would-be jazz pianist and a shy, bespectacled would-be medieval historian. They found a cultural revolution in the making.

The revolution spread far and wide. It spread through Beyond the Fringe, through the Establishment Club and through Private Eye. It spread into television through That Was The Week That Was. Once there, it spread through Monty Python and Not the Nine O'clock News to Spitting Image. Through Rowan Atkinson, through Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, through Rory Bremner to Steve Coogan. It spread into the language, mannerisms and culture of two generations. But always, in the beginning, there was Peter Cook.

It was an elusive talent to exploit or accommodate. He was a brilliant mimic, but not a good actor. He was wildly subversive satirist bored of the sacred cows he set out to demolish. He was a scabrously funny ad-libber who was lost without his sounding board. He had a imagination so quick, so surrealistic and so fantastical that few could keep up with him. He appeared to be quite lacking in ambition, as happy with an audience of one as with an audience of a million. Those who enjoyed his friendship said he was the funniest man alive. In recent years it became fashionable amongst a new generation who took much for granted to refer to him as "Britain's greatest under-achiever."
In fact he achieved more than they will perhaps ever know.