With Christopher Booker, Ian Hislop, Richard Ingrams, Paul Foot, Clive Anderson, Barry Humphries, Eleanor Bron, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett. Private Eye magazine; Clive Anderson Talks Back.
Appreciate the upload, Cook is my favourite comedian. His biography by Harry Thompson is also well worth a read. Regarding achieving potential ... better to have such brilliance in short periods of time spread over a life than be mediocre throughout. He was a one-off.
aww. Dudley Moore's comments about Pete's death are so touching and sad. Great doc especially love Alan Bennett's comment at the end "My only regret is that I saved David Frost from drowning." -- Peter Cook (according to Alan Bennett) oh that dry british sense of humor
Quite astonishing that they didn't see fit to mention his collaboration with Chris Morris called 'Why Bother?' from 1994; probably some of his best work at the time they mentioned.
I think the only reason that people thought of and labelled Cook as a failure is because his demeanour and life style, as he progressed through life, obviously indicated he was a failure by his own standards if not by everyone elses. From my own point of view I think the sketches he did and his sense of humour were brilliant, he was an amazing personality. But by his own criteria he so obviously fell short. He could laugh at it, which gave him a respite, but it was tragic.
What is it about so many hugely talented people in music, sport and entertainment who are seemingly cursed with an inability to be happy or even content.
I think there is, or was, an element of bitterness about the fact David Frost blatantly hijacked Cook's satirical reputation with 'That Week That Was' while he was touring in the U.S, it was an idea Peter Cook had touted around for a while from what I've read. I have no personal insight on the subject or their relationship of course. Alan Bennett is awesome all the same
@raxachol As we are talking Cookian books, I'll add 'How Very Interesting' to the list of decent reads. It's a collection of interviews with people that worked with him. Varied and full of interesting insights.
I cannot believe the way English parents treated their children through the 1800s and early 1900s, either leaving them with relatives or hired help for years at a time, or sending to boarding schools from the age of 5, or even sending them home on ships by themselves with other passengers on board who were virtual strangers. I remember a segment of the show, “Who Do You Think You Are,” where some actor’s ancestors had been sent via ship from India to England at the age of 2, with nobody even remotely familiar to her....can you imagine it?? No wonder a child as intelligent and sensitive as Cook had trouble with intimacy, and self medicated his social anxiety with scads of alcohol! I just feel terribly sorry for him, for his sister, for all children who were forced to live like that.
The first stage and decade of a life like this is getting on your feet and getting a resume. But then you have to knuckle down and rewrite and rehash it in to a larger form, like film. You take smaller ides and spin them up into bigger one. Aristotle said, "Happiness is activity of mind". Even the Satirist affirms something. Even if it's Topsey Turvey. He was Hurt, I think, and he couldn't channel it in to production Proper.
I enjoyed the documentary and the appreciate the upload but the overall tone of the doc was so negative, surely even if Peter didn't reach his full potential then that is even more of a testament to him! The fact is he is still recognised and one the greatest and most innovative comedians of all time. I encourage every to check out Stephen Fry talking about this very subject, the link is on the right
Stephen Fry? Really? I would prefer to watch the little bat-like man who speaks in this film sometimes power through what he will never power through, an unstupid sentence. Stephen Fry is like Oscar Wilde for Gide, or anyone who had never read Wilde, just Jeeves. For the record I'm no fan of Oscar Wilde, but I recognize the stereotype.
Em. I'm quite aware that 4 years went by since your comment but I just stumbled upon Peter Cook... and I wonder (as I'm no native speaker) if the Macintosh he mentioned is the famous coat? Or do I in fact mix things up?
