Beyond the Fringe

Thank God, a winner at last. No clap-trap in this one, no humbug and no humdrum inanities. The lean years are over (briefly, at any rate); and good theatre, entertaining entertainment, intelligent humor and everything that's good have returned to the Boston stage. After which quotable phrases it is my duty to tell you that Beyond the Fringe, which opened at the Colonial Theatre night before last, is beyond doubt the cleverest and best piece of theatre that will come anywhere near Boston this year. I laughed my fool head off.

Beyond the Fringe is, loosely, a sort of relaxed review, and it is the work of four inventive young Englishmen, two of them Oxford graduates, two from Cambridge, all of whom are no older than twenty-eight. The four are Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller and Dudley Moore, and they have devised a series of satiric sketches--which they themselves perform--that razz the bejesus out of the Establishment, the Church, coal miners, pansies, the London Transport Board, Ludwig Beethoven, African nationalists, the Bomb, Harold Macmillan, World War II, William Shakespeare, and sundry other subjects of similar import and relevance to modern existence. The tone is radical and very youthful (although not doctrinaire in any way--probably the nearest thing to a party label that could be pinned on Messrs. Miller et al. would be Far Out Liberal); the humor is echt British, but not unpleasantly so: an ingenious mixture of the ridiculous, the outrageous, the scathing, and the genial.

Jonathan Miller is probably the most genial of the four. He has devised two monologues--one about lost trousers on the British Railways, and one about the kind of people who buy porno books in furtive shops (books, says Miller, like A History of Flogging in the Army, the Navy and the Air Force)--which he illustrates by cavorting around the stage in all manner of curious attitudes, wildly illustrating, with suitable gestures, various aspects of his curiouser narratives. Miller also gives, in another bit, what is probably the best line in the show: "I'm not really a Jew, you know," he declares defensively, "just Jewish."

Cook, Bennett, and Moore take care of the outrageous. Cook has perfected an almost frightening imitation of the Prime Minister delivering one of his televised globe-side chats: his Macmillan is a semi-paralyzed, desperately senile ass who bleats bromides in a faltering Edwardian drawl. Moore is a most accomplished musician, and he has composed several most accomplished parodies of lieder by Schubert (this one called "Eine Flabbergast"), songs by Faure and Benjamin Britten and a piano sonata by Beethoven.

As for Bennett, he intones the best monologue of the show, a magnicently inadequate latter-day sermon based on the text "And he said, But my brother Esau is an hairy man, but I am a smooth man."

Collectively, the group is alternately scathing and ridiculous. The former emerges most strongly in a thing called "Aftermyth of War" which effectively debunks the smug nonsense about Britain's war effort, but which also has recurring undertones of near horror and revulsion. (Dame Myra Hess is lampooned for her heroic series of concerts at the British Museum--surely not an inherently funny undertaking; and the skit ends with a singing of Auld Lang Syne which suddenly runs down like a broken record player, suggesting--what? That the whole war effort was a fraud? That the years of the war were unreal? Something definitely unpleasant, in any event.)

And the ridiculous. The warm-up has three of them trying to convince the fourth (supposedly a Russian) of the charms of English life. "Say, 'Khrushchev--[Bronx cheer]," they command. No response, "Say, 'Macmillan--Mmmmmm,' "they try again, "Macmillan--Bra-a-a-a-at!" replies the Russian.

--Bra-a-a-a-at!" replies the Russian.

Yes, I know, I've only summarized. But it's stupid to give reasons for comic genius, when you can give a snatch of the comedy itself. I don't have space even to mention the superb Shakespeare bit--easily the most sustained piece of comedy in the show. But surely the burden of my message is clear. Beyond the Fringe is great. Beyond the Fringe is terrific. Beyond the Fringe is the show not to miss this year.