Jonathan Miller is probably best known here for his old TV documentary series "The Body in Question," but I also remember him as being terribly funny in some Parkinson interviews in the 1980's. As he has spent most of his time since then doing opera, he hasn't cut a very high profile (outside of those rarified circles) for many years.
He's now 75, and looking his age (he smokes, silly man), but his sharp tongued political observations continue unabated. He was famous for saying Margaret Thatcher's voice was like "a perfumed fart", but here is his assessment of Tony Blair:
“Well, I have a deep disdain for them [Tony and Cherie]. I couldn’t bear that grinning, money-hungry, beaming, Cliff Richard-loving, Berlusconi-adoring, guitar-playing twat. I suppose I would say that, at the risk of being inoffensive. No, it’s that beaming Christianity and that frightful wife with a mouth on a zip-fastener right round to the back of her head. And both of them obsessed with being wealthy. And he got us into this disastrous war with Iraq because he had consulted with God. Like Bush. Well, anyone who claims to do something on the basis of a personal relationship to a non-existent deity . . .”Top marks for invective, anyway.
He learnt it back in the days when he went about with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, and Alan Bennett; they all went around swapping invective and insults. Cook and Moore went to their graves insulting one another in as savage manner as possible. Some of them tried to make up for being nasty young men by being nice old men, but it's easy to slip into old habits.
ReplyDeletePeter Cook was hilarious on Parkinson too, as I recall. I think there is a recent book about him by his wife (or first wife?), which I think would be interesting.
ReplyDeleteAlan Bennett has always stuck me as dull.
Judy Cook - his second wife. I reviewed it here. The book sent me to YouTube where I found several interviews with Parkie, amongst others.
ReplyDeleteThe DVD of Beyond the Fringe is worth watching, for all its dreadful production values, and Miller was funny and clever in those days.
ReplyDeleteI'm surprised you don't like Alan Bennett - he makes "dull" entertaining and moving and can be excruciatingly funny.
Of the old stuff, "Take a Pew" still makes me laugh.
This is probably the best opportunity I've got to tell my favourite Beyond the Fringe story. Stop me if you've heard it*.
ReplyDeleteIt happened when they were all doing the show in America. Jonathan Miller's wife, who was with them, had recently given birth. She came into the show with the child, and seeing this, Cook waited until Miller and Bennett were on stage together, and whisked the child away. He emerged on the stage moments later, mid-skit, and held the child up to Miller and Bennett, wheezing:
"Pardon me, sir. It's Jenkins, the butler. It's your wife, sir. She's just given birth to a baby! What shall I do?"
Bennet replies, with an officious wave of his hand:
"Oh, put it in the fridge, Jenkins."
And the show goes on.
*I love the pseudo-immediacy of blog comments!