This review took me outside my comfort zone ... which is probably
just as well from time to time.
The territory covered by these three discs covers dates mostly
from the heyday of the LP and the novelty single. They pick
up on classic comedy scenes as well as the genre of goofy and
oddball songs and do so in very clean transfers. The undercurrents
range from sharp wit to broader humour - thanks Max Miller and
Noel Coward. Frankie Howard was much indebted to Miller. Coward
is something of a legend of the double-entendre in Let’s
do It and is cleverly vengeful in Don’t Let’s
Be Beastly to the Germans.
Jokes have to be pretty robust for you to know the punch-line
and still want to hear the joke over and over again. That’s
where style and nostalgia come in to fill the gap left by knowing
the pay-off. Style and nostalgia are here in spades.
Taste in comedy is very personal and possibly very national.
One man’s guffaw is another’s wan smile. Take one
example close to home. Tony Hancock - as opposed to the comedians
around him - never did anything much for me. The general consensus
is overwhelmingly against me. Hancock in all his bleak gloom
is represented here by some truly classic scenes so you can
make your mind up if it is not already formed. We hear Sunday
afternoon at home and The Blood Donor.
Bob Newhart’s delivery is superb. Listen to his artistry
in Tobacco, in Cruise of the Codfish, in Driving
Instructor and in Bus Drivers’ School though
the latter does feel like a bit of a re-tread. I loved Shelley
Berman in Stewardess which is just so clever and witty
about the English language. Speaking of which Tom Lehrer is
self-enraptured as well he might be in Poisoning pigeons
with its tightly intricate rhyming schemes. In his Wiener
schnitzel waltz the flame burns high again - here is a man
who with Sondheim-like mastery rhymes simile with Rudolf
Friml-ey. In The Elements he sings the names of the
Elementsto the tune of I am the very model of a modern
major general - a tongue-twister in which he manages to
rhyme Harvard with discarver’d. Lenny Bruce
is represented by one track of rasping and gravelly satire.
Stan Freberg’s Elderly Man River was new to me
and very welcome.
There’s quite a few of those Uncle Mac, Family
Favourites and Workers’ Playtime novelty songs
too. I remember hearing these while sitting in the barbers’
shop with the Light Programme playing on the radio on a Saturday
morning. They’re well done but where there was once fizz
there is now only a slight smile: There’s a Hole in
my Bucket (Dear Lisa Dear Lisa), Cribbins’
Right Said Fred and Hole in the Ground and Three
wheels on my wagon. Rolf’s Tie Me Kangaroo Down
is pretty flat but he is good at pathos and carries it off.
Tommy Cooper induced infectious laughter but the song Don’t
Jump Off the Roof is mostly so-so - not his finest hour.
American examples include the affectionate and slightly tearful
Laurel and Hardy in Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the Groucho
Marx Hooray for Captain Spaulding is a triumph of Groucho’s
style but the Spike Jones track (skitting Raksin’s Laura)
is as flat as 48 hour-uncorked champagne - dismal.
Stanley Holloway’s The Lion and Albert is a hangover
from music-hall monologues - perhaps the most famous. Hoffnung
is a classic raconteur - among many other accomplishments. He
is heard in two signature anecdotes from the Oxford Union. Kenneth
Williams was a distinctive and engaging performer as Hand
Up Your Sticks and Not an Asp go to show. Joyce Grenfell
can be heard slumming it in Shirley’s Girlfriend
and up there in cut-glass snooty land in two other more typical
and marvellous selections.
I remember going to see Victor Borge at Bristol’s Colston
Hall in the 1970s. Even then I am not sure that I thought he
was that funny though his sly and absent-minded manner was consummate.
I can see that his Phonetic Punctuation is a tour
de force and that his delivery is stylish but where has
all the effervescence gone? Compare him with Peter Ustinov’s
virtuoso performance as singer and orchestra all by himself
in Folksong: just magnificent.
There’s quite a lot of Peter Sellers. This is all to the
good even if the novelty songs like Goodness Gracious me
with its faintly racist after-burn will only raise a slight
smile. However his hyper-oration for Balham, Gateway to the
South is supreme. It rings out like those cheesy Telly Savalas
commentary-laden topographical documentaries around the UK;
remember the ones for Birmingham and Portsmouth? His other Sophia
Loren hit, Bangers and Mash still works. Sellers’
nuanced work with Irene Handl is celebrated in The Critics
and Room for Romance. Evoking an era are the Flanders
and Swann classics: Gnu Song, Hippopatmus and
Madeira M’Dear. Michael Bentine’s clever
delivery in Football Results sets the scene for the mania
later tapped into by John Cleese.
Inevitably the vagaries of copyright expiry have helped dictate
the selection. Of personal and slightly more recent favourite
characters such as Alan Partridge, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Dick Solomon,
Al Bundy and Sheldon Cooper there is nothing; nor could there
be. Ideally we would have been treated to extracts from the
two professors in History Today and the stars of Fist
of Fun but this is just not feasible. What there is from
the 1930s through to the early 1960s is well worth hearing.
All the more so since some of these classics may be unknown
to people in the 20-50 age bracket. For those 50+ these discs
serve as an exercise in nostalgia - nothing wrong with that.
Some of it will misfire but a lot pushes the button top dead
centre.
There you have it: three brimmingly generous discs at super-budget
price. There’s so much here and by no means all of it
familiar. Explore, discover and re-discover. There’s plenty
of gold here and for young comics setting out or learning their
craft this functions as an inexpensive laughter primer. Something
here to amuse everyone at Christmas and New Year.
These three discs go with Alto ALN 1935 (Very Best Of Bob Newhart)
and with ALN 1921 (Tom Lehrer).
Rob Barnett
Full Track Details
The Driving Instructor - 20 Comedy Classics
1. The Driving Instructor (Newhart) Bob Newhart (1960) 8:00
2. Poisoning Pigeons in the Park (Lehrer) Tom Lehrer (1960)
2:40
3. Fight Fiercely Harvard (Lehrer) Tom Lehrer (1953) 1:23
4. The Kid In The Well (Bruce) Lenny Bruce (1958) 2:59
5. Nursery School (Flowers) Joyce Grenfell (1956) 5:09
6. Max At The Met - Excerpt (Miller) Max Miller (1956) 3:57
7. A Sunday Afternoon At Home (Galton/Simpson) - Excerpt - Tony
Hancock, Sidney James, Bill Kerr and Hattie Jacques (1955) 4:01
8. Phonetic Punctuation (Borge) Victor Borge 5:40
9. Darktown Poker Club (Vodery/Havez/Williams) Phil Harris (1945)
3:02
10. Balham - Gateway To The South (Muir/Norden/Goodwin) Peter
Sellers 6:03
11. Suddenly It’s Folk Song (Sellers/Fisher) Peter Sellers
5:20
12. Trail Of The Lonesome Pine (Carroll/MacDonald) Laurel &
Hardy (1937) 1:59
13. A Transport Of Delight (London Omnibus) Flanders & Swann
3:02
14. The Hippopotamus Song Flanders & Swann 3:48
15. Let’s Do It (Porter) Noel Coward 3:40
16. Don’t Let’s Be Beastly To The Germans (Coward)
Noel Coward 3:14
Orchestra conducted by Carroll Gibbons (1942)
17. Cocktails For Two (Johnston/Coslow) Spike Jones & his
City Slickers Vocal: Carl Grayson (1944) 2:57
18. Laura (Raskin/Mercer) Spike Jones & his City Slickers
Vocal: Jimmy Cassidy, Red Ingle and Dr. Horatio Q. Birdbath
(1945) 2:58
19. Hooray For Captain Spaulding (Kalmar/Ruby) Groucho Marx
(1951) 3.09
20. The Lion And Albert (Edgar) Stanley Holloway (1932) 3.15
ADD/DDD
ALTO ALN 1919 [79:00]
The Bricklayer - 17 more Comedy Classics - Vol. 2
1. Goodness Gracious Me (Lee/Kretzmer) Peter Sellers & Sophia
Loren / Orchestra conducted Ron Goodwin 1960 3:11
2. The Bricklayer (Hoffnung) Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union
1958 7:27
3. The Blood Donor - Excerpt (Galton & Simpson) Tony Hancock
with Patrick Cargill 1961 3:57
4. Hand Up Your Sticks (Cook) (From “One over the Eight”)
Kenneth Williams and Lance Percival 1961 2:28
5. The Ballad Of Bethnal Green (Roberts) Paddy Roberts 1959
2:43
6. The Critics (Goodwin/Schreiner) Peter Sellers and Irene Handl
1959 6:48
7. French Widows (Hoffnung) Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union
5:08
8. Shadows On The Grass (Handl) Peter Sellers and Irene Handl
6:46
9. Aftermyth Of War (from ‘Beyond The Fringe’) Bennett/Cook/Moore/Miller)
Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller & Dudley Moore
1961 7:37
10. Not An Asp (Cook) (from “Pieces of Eight”) Kenneth
Williams and Peter Brett Rec.1959 4:44
11. Bangers And Mash (Lee/Kretzmer) Peter Sellers & Sophia
Loren /Orchestra conducted Ron Goodwin 1960 2:43
12. Madeira M’Dear (Swann/Flanders) Michael Flanders and
Donald Swann Rec.1959 3:57
13. Bus Drivers’ School (Newhart) Bob Newhart Rec.1960
6:20
14. Department Store (Berman) Shelley Berman Rec.1959 6:08
15. The Elements (Lehrer) Tom Lehrer 1959 2:19
16. Misalliance (Swann/Flanders) Michael Flanders and Donald
Swann Rec.1957 3:55
17. The Wiener Schnitzel Waltz (Lehrer) Tom Lehrer Rec.1953
2:22
ADD stereo
ALTO ALN 1929 [78:00]
Introducing Tobacco - 22 more Comedy Classics Vol.3
1. Introducing Tobacco to Civilization (Newhart/Kaufman/Rosen/Hargrove/Sharp/Snyder/Hickley)
- Bob Newhart (1962) 6:01
2. Stewardess (Berman) - Shelley Berman (1959) 3:08
3. Shirley’s Girlfriend (Grenfell) - Joyce Grenfell (1958)
4:46
4. Right Said Fred (Dicks/Rudge) - Bernard Cribbins (1961) 2:19
5. Tie Me Kangeroo Down Sport (Harris) - Rolf Harris (1960)
2:49
6. Don’t Jump off the Roof, Dad (Coben) - Tommy Cooper
(1961) 2:32
7. Come Outside (Blackwell) - Mike Sarne with Wendy Richard
(1962) 2:49
8. A Pub with no Beer (Parsons) - Slim Dusty (1959) 2:58
9. Football Results (Bentine/Law) - Michael Bentine (1961) 1:48
10. Bloodnok’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Call (Carbone)
- The Goons (1956) 3:11
11. Cougher Royal (Milligan) - Spike Milligan with Valentine
Dyall (1961) 2:53
12. Gnu Song (Flanders/Swann) -Michael Flanders & Donald
Swann (1957) 3:06
13. Phoney Folk-Lore (Ustinov) - Peter Ustinov (1952) 3:17
14. Narcissus (The Laughing Record) (Nevin/arr.Paramor/Grenfell)
- Norman Wisdom and Joyce Grenfell (1952) 2:54
15. All’s Going Well (My Lady Montmorency) (Misraki/Parsons)
- Frankie Howerd and Margaret Rutherford (1953) 3:23
16. Hole In The Ground (Dicks/Rudge) - Bernard Cribbins (1962)
1:50
17. Three Wheels on my Wagon (Bacharach/Hilliard) New Christy
Minstrels (1962) 2:58
18. The Yellow Rose of Texas (George) - Stan Freberg (1955)
3:21
19. The Cruise of the USS Codfish (Newhart) - Bob Newhart (1960)
5:01
20. There’s a Hole in my Bucket (Trad./arr.Belafonte/Gordon)
- Harry Belafonte and Odetta (1961) 4:14
21. Mother and Son (Nichols/May) - Mike Nichols and Elaine May
(1960) 6:35
22. Elderly Man River (Freberg/Barnum/Kern/Hammerstein II) -
Stan Freberg (1957) 5:10
ADD stereo
ALTO ALN 1939 [78:35]
ALTO TAKE 2 ALN 1919 [79:00] 