Usually I would give something like this a 10/10. I dock it two for a couple of reasons. First, I was never much for the Dame Edna character by Barry Humphries. Didn't find it too funny. Second, the fact that some of the sketches were chopped up really bothered me. In particular, Peter Cook's "Sitting on the Bench" miner sketch had about half of it cut out. Bothersome...you can see it in the "Beyond the Fringe" DVD in full, though. Other than that, there are moments of unparalleled hilarity. The courtroom sketch is a mish mash of Monty Python's courtroom sketched rolled up into one. And the result is marvelous, with Peter Cook as the defendant. "Dead Parrot" is also a real treat, with Michael Palin cracking up in the middle of the sketch...pure classic. Eleanor Bron's sketch is great. The rendition of "So That's the Way You Like It" was great. It seemed as if Terry Jones was made for that sketch. However, the best part of this whole video is Peter Cook's "Not An Asp" sketch. Once again, he gets the foil (John Fortune) to "corpse." He even corpses a bit himself. He is god, old Cookie... All in all, a great video, probably too short, the backstage bits are great, though. Great stuff, watch more British comedy!!!
Review of Pleasure at Her Majesty's
