Discs: Bright Comics

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31023, 31 March 1966, Page 8

Discs: Bright Comics

“Not Only Peter Cook But Also Dudley Moore” on Decca mono LKM.4703 (12in, 39s 6d) is a disc of dialogues adapted from some 8.8. C. television series. Cooke and Moore established themselves as bright young comics with that show of graduated undergraduates “Beyond the Fringe” and have continued here with the task of elevating commonplace conversation to the level of entertaining and sometimes satirical comedy. They blow fresh air on to subjects like a man teaching ravens to fly underwater, art galleries and what paintings should be hung in toilets, superstitions, religions, and have a gay conversation conducted mainly in initials. If you have the L.S.D. you should find this LP O.K.

A high point in the World

Record Club’s edited Shakespeare series is reached with “King Henry V”, on stereo SLS.II (355), which has Richard Burton as the Welsh victor of Agincourt.

In these days of after Empire, a patriotic tale of heroic king and glorious campaigning might be anachronistic. But the disc skips the play’s early political manoeuvres and opens with the Dauphin’s jibe about tennis balls. Burton replies in a period manner, with a Churchillian slur and sternness of resolution that suggests not a buccaneer as much as a wronged party convinced of the rightness of his cause.

From then it is over to Harrry the soldier king. Burton here impresses with his intensity and flexibility. His stirring if breathy rallying cry to the breach at Harfleur, his disguised encounter with his men and his troubled examination of conscience before battle, and his somewhat speedy wooing of Katherine are all ingratiatingly done. There is a good representation of the variety of attitudes and people with which the play is thronged, including

the fluent Fluellen, the skeptical Williams and the aging Pistol.

Shakespeare’s chorus asked that imagination should deck the lines and wisely sound effects are sparing and effective, especially at the end of battle. Accompanying this fine disc, which incorrectly describes the play as a tragedy, is a script. ANGRY PATRICIAN

The background of the Roman play “Coriolanus” as a vehicle for discussing the hot issues of Shakespeare’s day—calls for grain reform and the republican forces against Kang James’s aristocrats—is interestingly discussed on the sleeve of World stereo SLS.9 (355). Pauses between sentences make the opening disjointed, but gradually the play gathers impetus. John Stride as the angry patrician is better with the raging than with the roaring, while Sybil Thorndike is an eloquent Volumnia. In the inevitable cutting to time, the rival warrior Aufldius becomes a minor figure in the tragedy.