Peter Cook E S ocial 1 9 5 1 – 1 9 5 6
Peter Cook was at Radley between 1951 and 1956 and was already developing the qualities that would make him a great comedian of the 60s and later years. “Even at school,” wrote his contemporary, Michael Bawtree, “Peter had a greater capacity for making people laugh than anyone I have ever met then or since.” His first written work was for the Marionette Theatre, a humorous fantastical musical called Black and White Blues in which he performed as the voice of Mr Slump, an evangelical who took his jazz band to Africa to convert the natives. Such was the success of Black and White Blues a 78 rpm record was made of its highlights (500 copies) at the Isis Recording Studios in Oxford. Peter Cook was most famous at Radley among his contemporaries for his impersonations of dons and those in authority. He was already a brilliant mimic and the seeds of EL Wisty were sown in his mimicking of Mr Boylett, the Steward at the Prefects’ table in Hall. And he loved performing: he once put on a solo conjuring exhibition for the whole school. In the Old Gym he played a variety of roles: typical was his performance as the Wicked Fairy in Peter Ustinov’s Love of Four Colonels. Peter Raby, a contemporary and The Good Fairy in the same play, wrote, “He dominated the production quite naturally with his comic energy and timing.” To Radleians of his era his success in Beyond the Fringe a few years later cannot have come as a complete surprise. Getty Images
a choreographed masque of dressing-up devised to establish character, through to the dénouement when rakish Sir Joseph Surface (the Senior Prefect, Ed. Martineau, Dragon, H Social) is revealed trying to seduce Lady Teazle (Tom Holloway, Packwood Haugh, A Social) by her husband Sir Peter Teazle (Rupert Lazarus, Moulsford, B Social), the technics, direction and boys’ acting were of the highest standard. Many visitors and parents found it hard to credit that it was a school play. They have established a benchmark to which the next generation in the theatre will aspire and it is already clear that the demand to use it is going to be very considerable.
page 2 top right: Radley Crest in Beads made by the Radley Art Department to commemorate the opening of the new theatre. bottom left: Icarus Falling to Earth by Ivan Knapp, (Rodborough School, D Social,) mixed media. bottom right: The Gala Opening of the New Theatre. page 3 top left: Sheridan’s The School for Scandal. bottom left: Childhood memories by Edward Green, (Cottesmore, C Social,) mixed media.
Dudley Moore and Peter Cook at Comic Relief in Los Angeles, November 1987
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