That Was Satire That Was: The Satire Boom of the 1960s - Hardcover

Carpenter, Humphrey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0575065885 ISBN 13: 9780575065888

Publisher: Victor Gollancz, 2000

Synopsis

Forty years ago, at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival, four young men walked on to a stage and produced a flow of staggeringly inspired comic genius. In Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennett created a satirical revue which amazed the critics and the public, selling out night after night.
Soon the satire virus spread: The Establishment Club, 'London's first satirical nightclub', opened its doors in Soho; a scruffy yellow pamphlet calling itself Private Eye became available in certain London coffee bars. Eventually even the BBC woke up to the fact that comedy was changing, and inaugurated the satirical Saturday night television programme That Was the Week That Was. For a few months everyone wanted to be a satirist.
Carpenter has talked to the people involved, including Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller, Ned Sherrin, Richard Ingrams and the late John Wells. He has woven their stories together with a wealth of comic material - including sketches from Beyond the Fringe which never made it to London, much of the hilarity from That Was The Week That Was, and fascinating stuff from the BBC archives - to create a narrative which brings vibrantly alive this key period of British life.

About this title

About the Author:

Humphrey Carpenter was born in 1946. After Oxford, he worked for the BBC, and then became a freelance writer. He has written numerous prize-winning biographies as well as a highly successful children's book series. He is a regular book reviewer for the Sunday Times, and was the director of the Cheltenham Festival of Literature 1994-6.

About this edition

• Publisher: Victor Gollancz
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0575065885
• ISBN 13: 9780575065888
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 378