The Best of What's Left: Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

AT SOME POINT in the 1970s, the BBC erased about half of the television series "Not Only .. But Also" from its archives, which was a devastating crime on two counts. First, it eradicated historic footage of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's early routines from the mid-1960s, which influenced generations of British comedy from "Monty Python" to "The Office." Second, those clips would have been roll-on-the-floor funny.

In 1990, at the urging of Cook, BBC delved into its archives, salvaged the remaining footage, and assembled six episodes of the best surviving material, which was rebroadcast as "The Best of ... What's Left of ... Not Only ... But Also." In lieu of the exhaustive box set that many fans dream about, BBC United is releasing those six episodes on a single DVD, with a short documentary from 1974.

Members of the groundbreaking Beyond the Fringe comedy troupe, Cook and Moore were notorious for their half-written scripts and witty ad-libs. They are excellent parodists and ace absurdists, as "Superthunderstingcar" (a send-up of the "Thunderbirds" puppet show) and the Leaping Nuns of the Order of St. Beryls sketch prove. Yet their funniest bits involve them sitting on a bare stage and simply having a conversation about the zoo, heaven or fine art. There is no straight man between them.

In fact, part of the fun of watching these old sketches is watching the subtleties of their interactions, especially how Moore tries valiantly to keep a straight face while Cook eggs him on to break character. There's a sparring element to their interactions, a genial one-upmanship that Cook usually wins.

There's also a jazz element to their improv, which is apt since Moore was a classically trained pianist and performs several numbers with the Dudley Moore Trio and a few obscure special guests. Perhaps the most well-known musician on the show never even played a note: John Lennon appears in a satirically surreal sketch acting out scenes from his poem "Deaf Ted, Danoota, (and Me)." Singularly strange, it's enough to make you wonder what all was lost 30 years ago, but "What's Left of ... " is better than None at All.

Written by Express Contributor Stephen Deusner
Photo Courtesy of BBC Video