betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry) (08/02/85)
I rented this movie under the title of Beyond The Fringe from my local video emporium. It is *not* the entire original Beyond the Fringe revue; instead, it is a compendium of good skits by most of the British comedians of the past twenty years. The stars include: Alan Bennett (the playwright) Bill Oddie John Bird John Fortune Eleanor Bron (the woman in Bedazzled) Terry Jones (Python) Tim Brooke-Taylor Michael Palin (Python) John Cleese (Python) Jonathan Miller (The Body Human, et.al) Peter Cook (Bedazzled) Carol Cleveland (Python) and others I didn't recognize. Although the film begins with the infamous 'dead parrot' sketch, most of the skits in it were new to me. (They include the parson-murderer's courtroom scene, the lecture on types of humor, and Peter Cook's monologue about mines). The sound, unfortunately, is dreadful; I needed the rewind button to figure out much of the dialogue. The camerawork isn't much better, but at least one can usually *see* the sketches. According to my Monty Python biography (The Life of Python), the movie I saw corresponds closely to a movie called 'Pleasure at Her Majesty's' which was released in 1976 and is a tape of an Amnesty International benefit performance. Overall, I'd recommend seeing the film if you like British humor; the intelligible parts are remarkably funny. But make sure you either have an interpreter or can rewind the film at pleasure. -- Elizabeth Hanes Perry UUCP: {decvax |ihnp4 | linus| cornell}!dartvax!betsy CSNET: betsy@dartmouth ARPA: betsy%dartmouth@csnet-relay "Ooh, ick!" -- Penfold