Beyond the Fringe: So That’s the Way You Like It

Synopsis: A sketch from the satirical revue Beyond the Fringe, written and performed by Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook and Jonathan Miller, and first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1960. The sketch satirises Shakespearean blank verse and the history plays in particular. An extract runs thus:
Miller: ‘Get thee to Gloucester, Essex. Do thee to
Wessex, Exeter,
Fair Albany to Somerset must eke his route
And Scroop, do you to Westmoreland, where shall
bold York
Enrouted now for Lancaster, with forces of our
Uncle Rutland’. It concludes:
`I most royally shall now to bed,
To sleep off all the nonsense I’ve just said’.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Year of release: 1961

Cast

Notes: The DVD of the Gala farewell stage performance is available as Region 1 only, a version running at 120mins. An audio version of the sketch is included in COMPLETE BEYOND THE FRINGE - a 3 CD box set available from retail outlets. The sketch also forms part of THE SHAKESPEARE REVUE performed by Christopher Luscombe and Malcolm McKee. See separate catalogue entry for details of format and availablility.
General: Beyond the Fringe transferred to the West End where it ran for five years and later went to Broadway. It’s success was partly responsible for the wave of satire in Britain in the 1960s. A gala farewell performance was televised by the BBC and transmitted on BBC2 12 December 1964 in a one-hour slot. The US premiere of the show, running at 120 minutes, was broadcast at the Museum of Television and Radio, New York City (now Paley Center for Media) during February/March 2005.

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