Too many Cooks?

Another Pete & Dud play...

A new play about Peter Cook and Dudley Moore is to be performed on the site of The Establishment Club Cook established in 1961.

Goodbye: The (After) Life Of Cook & Moore is at least the fourth play in recent years about the duo, following the Channel 4 TV movie Not Only But Always; last year's Edinburgh show Come Again, which transferred to the West End; and Pete N Me, which played at London’s New End Theatre.

Now playwrights Jonathan Hanslee and Clive Greenwood have organised a rehearsed reading of their script at The Boardwalk in Greek Street, Soho, this Thursday - 45 years to the day since Cook's acclaimed satirical club opened in the same building.

Described as a surreal fantasy, the play imagines a meeting between Cook and Moore in Limbo, with an hour to resolve their differences as they face divine judgement for their foul-mouthed Derek & Clive tapes.

They are visited by the spirits of other dead comedians, including Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Leonard Rossiter, Frankie Howerd, Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey.

In the reading, Hansler will play Cook, a role he previously took in Pete & Me.

Greenwood will read all the other comedians, Adam Bampton-Smith will play Dudley and Nicola Hollinshead will be Rena Fruchter, Dudley’s carer after he was struck down by progressive supranuclear palsy.

The reading takes place at 3pm on Thursday, and is free.

Published: 1 Oct 2006

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