| Why Bother? |
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| Why Bother? |
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Two of my comedy heroes teamed up in 1994, shortly before the death of one and the meteoric rise of the other, to produce a very dry and original piece of radio comedy, spread across five episodes.
Five interviews as heard on BBC Radio 3
1994 saw one of Peter Cook's most acclaimed performances since his 1960's heyday. Chris Morris' surreal and inventive questions brought out the best of eccentric aristocrat Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling - a character whom Cook had carried with him through Beyond the fringe and Not Only... But Also... to his latter years.
These five interviews recall Streeb-Greebling's early years (sent to prison at the age of four by his father) and his life before and after the incident with the eels. It looks back at his days of extreme comfort in a Japanese POW camp and his attempts to mediate in the Rodney King LA riots. Streeb-Greebling discusses his habit of strangling business partners, reveals his plans to capitalise on his discovery of the fossilised remains of the infant Christ and attempts to begin an extremely tedious anecdote about bee-keeping.
I may one day get around to transcribing these interviews, but until then here are some short extracts. Hopefully they'll persuade you to buy it from the BBC Online Shop.
Episode 1 - Eels, love and guns
Morris: You were arrested with a gun in the vicinity of Eric Clapton's apartment in LA.
Cook: Not arrested, I was taking part in the racial violence...
Cook: I like to think I mowed down as many whites as I did blacks. The Koreans did very badly out of the whole deal.
Morris: Do you feel any pride now?
Cook: I feel nothing but pride. That's all I do feel. An empty pride, a hopeless vanity, a dreadful arrogance, a stupefyingly futile conceit. But at least it's something to hang on to.
Morris: And the fact that you got away...
Cook: With murder, yes - let's not mince words...
Cook: I've been distorted, I've been misrepresented, and I've been quoted accurately, which is perhaps the most appalling...
Episode 2 - Bears
Morris: (laughs) I've just had a...rather entertaining thought of you...er, dying...
Cook: We were woken at dawn by the sound of hanging...
Episode 3 - Christ
Morris: Let me put it to you like this. Don't you think that if you clone Christ, he will in some way want to remonstrate with you as soon as he can?
Cook: Well, that's up to him, but he'll be pretty lost without the batteries.
Episode 4 - Prisoner of war
Morris: Many of them had been driven insane by the work they were doing, and those that could testify claimed that you had helped in that mental decaying.
Cook: I never physically beat anybody, and you can see film footage of me not beating anybody.
Morris: Four and a half seconds of film...
Cook: You can see film footage of me sitting in my office, trying to get the air conditioning working.
Morris: And four and a half seconds of film proves that you didn't hit them?
Cook: Why would I hit my own men unless they were shirking?
Morris: Well, let's leave that aside.
Cook: Leave that aside, please.
Morris: I put it to you that it's perfectly possible to drive a man out of his mind, simply by using words and mental torture.
Cook: Well, the fact that I may have said to Summleton, I may have said "Get a move on". If that is mental cruelty, well I'm a Dutchman.
Morris: Is it or is it not mental cruelty to appear to that man as his wife in the middle of the night?
Cook: (pause) I would call that a kindness in the conditions we were living in. Any man who got anybody coming to his...cell, posing as a man, woman or lizard was welcome, because...
Morris: And then withhold favours?
Cook: (pause) I did, yes.
Morris: What I'm saying is that you persecuted this man until he went out of his mind, and he wasn't the only one...
Cook: I played hard to get...and...er, I may have talked about marriage, but I mean, you know we were both drunk. Well at least I was drunk because that sake is remarkably powerful...
Morris: In many interviews...
Cook: Yes, yes indeed, and thank you very much.
Episode 5 - Drugs etc
Cook: I take against people who blow up people who I would like to go to bed with. So, I wouldn't say I murdered him - I allowed him to die.
Morris: Beneath your own hands and body?
Cook: Yes...
Cook: Now, I tell you the downside of this is you feel awful, but the upside is you feel terrific...