Cook of the walk

If I could go back in time to anywhere, and see any comedian perform live, there would be only one place on my list: the Establishment Club in Soho, London, in October 1961. This was where the British satire boom began, a movement which helped to change the face of comedy forever. And leading the fight was a twenty-four-year-old Cambridge student called Peter Cook.

Peter Cook’s name is synonymous with subversive, quick-witted, off-the-wall humour. His body of work contains some of British comedy’s brightest gems, from his brilliant two-handers with Dudley Moore to the ingenious ‘Miner’ monologue, about a man who could have been a judge but “never had the Latin.” He consistently tops public polls as the greatest comedian ever and is almost universally admired by his peers.

Earlier this month, a special green plaque was unveiled on the site of the Establishment Club in honour of his memory. Barry Cryer and Nicholas Parsons made speeches praising him as “a one-off”, “exceptional” and “relentlessly funny”. And yet, looking around Britain today, I wonder how much of his legacy has survived.

Now, I’m not going to use this column to rant against modern comedy, because if I’m honest it’s in, quite literally, rude health. I may not find Russell Brand remotely funny, but one can’t deny that he’s successful. Nor is this the time to be nostalgic, moaning that ‘they don’t write stuff like that anymore’. To think that is to ignore how much society has changed. Show sketches like ‘The Great Train Robbery’ in the Students Union and I can guarantee they’ll be greeted with deathly silence.

From this point of view it’s tempting to write Cook off as someone funny in his day but of little relevance to us. And yet, so much of his style and approach to comedy survives today, even if it is unfashionable for comedians to admit it.

Firstly, there is the railing against established order, a strong motif in British comedy. The Goon Show may have started this trend, but it was Cook who turned it into a political monster. He made headline news by impersonating Harold Macmillan at a time when impressionists needed written permission to do so. No Cook, no Spitting Image.

Then there is the British talent for improvisation. John Cleese once said that if you wanted a three-minute sketch, Cook would go off, talk into a tape recorder for three minutes and there you’d have it. You only have to go to a Ross Noble gig to see how that trait has been carefully preserved.

Many people think that comedians insulting their audience for the sake of a laugh is a recent invention, immortalised by Michael Richards repeatedly shouting “nigger” at black hecklers during a gig in California. But in fact, Cook started that too: during one of his shows he spotted the Prime Minister in the audience, broke off from the script and started ranting against him to the sound of hysterical laughter.

Finally, there is the golden thread of surrealism, which most people associate with Monty Python or the Q series. But even before those came along, Cook was plumbing the depths with Dudley on Not Only… But Also. No-one who has ever seen ‘The Leaping Nuns of Norwich’, or their magnificent parody of Thunderbirds, can come away without feeling their senses have been messed with.

At the unveiling, Ian Hislop remarked: “Finally, Peter joins the establishment and goes from being off-the-wall to being on it.” He was wrong, if only as a joke. The times may have changed, but Cook remains the inspiration for so many people. Comedians are still copying him, and probably always will, such is the depth and range of his work (search for ‘Derek and Clive’ on YouTube if you don’t believe me). Whether you’ve seen and memorised every sketch, or never seen him perform, his ghost is in the machine of all British comedy, if you know where to look. Perhaps that it the most fitting legacy for Cook: not what he did in his lifetime, but what a huge influence he has become. He may not have had the Latin, but he had all the talent in the world.