Goodbye Again

Goodbye Again

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore

Summary

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are the greatest double act that Great Britain has ever produced. This collection of their works is a comprehensive compilation of the finest comedy sketches that Cook and Moore ever wrote together - from the beginning of their partnership, in the groundbreaking stage show, Beyond The Fringe, to the notorious taboo busting Derek and Clive LPs that captured the spirit of punk rock, and inspired the scatological anarchy of Alternative Comedy. Featuring transcripts of one night stands long since almost forgotten, as well as a wealth of virtually unknown material, including previously unpublished scripts for Not Only But Also, Goodbye Again is a revelation, even for Cook and Moore's most informed fans.

As well as illuminating their work, this book also promises to shed light on their intimate yet turbulent relationship. It will show how these two diametrically opposed men; tall and athletic Cook from a middle class public boarding school background, and diminutive, club-footed Moore, working class but with an impressive musical talent, came together to develop the closest of partnerships based on an instinctive, virtually intuitive sense of humour. Goodbye Again will chart the extraordinary friendship between the two men and its almost telepathic intensity, which not only bought them together but also pulled them apart time after time, until their eventual reconciliation.

Reviews

  • This volume of Pete and Dud sketches is... invaluable
    The Guardian

About the author

William Cook

William Cook’s most recent book is One Leg Too Few - The Adventures of Peter Cook & Dudley Moore, published by Preface.

He is also the author of Ha Bloody Ha (Fourth Estate), The Comedy Store (Little, Brown), Morecambe & Wise Untold (HarperCollins) and 25 Years of Viz (Macmillan).

He edited Kiss Me, Chudleigh - The World According to Auberon Waugh (Hodder), Eric Morecambe Unseen (HarperCollins), and Tragically, I Was An Only Twin and Goodbye Again, two biographical anthologies of the work of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, both published by Century.

He has worked for the BBC and has written for the Guardian, the New Statesman and the Mail on Sunday. He currently contributes to the Independent, the Spectator and Conde Nast Traveller. He has won several awards for his travel writing, including the Johann Strauss Gold Medal for his writing about Vienna.
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