Beyond The Fringe

Four young Englishmen are currently beguiling these lately emancipated colonies. Their names, of course, are John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Another British quartet will overperform a saucy, if no longer way-out, review in Boston for a couple of weeks before continuing their national tour. This second group is amusing.

In fact, if you choked laughing when you saw Beyond the Fringe in New York, preserve the memory. Better yet, drop down to the Loeb some afternoon where any number of drama wonks have memorized the record and are ever sniffing about for a fresh audience. Hams they may be, but they do it quieter, funnier, and better than the road cast at the Wilbur.

In case anyone has been in hiding for the last two years, Beyond The Fringe is a series of 20-odd bits; many just acted out shaggy-dog jokes that set up a punch line. Three pansies don yellow rain bonnets and finally record basso profundo--a rugged TV ad for "the Man's cigarette." Other skits are extended and often scathing parodies like the first act closer, a merciless debunking of Britain's heroic World War II effort Listening to Dame Myra Hess (a scraggly gray wig accomplishes this transformation) play the moonlight sonata in those courageous British Museum Concerts, a veddy upper matron advises her son, "This music was written by a German, deah. That's something you'll have to work out for yourself." Funny thing, war. The review also gets its licks at the Royal Family, the English way of death, the Establishment, Bertrand Russell, the Bomb, and Will Shakespeare.

Bennett, Cook, Miller, and Moore devised Beyond The Fringe and are still pleasing the Broadway crowd with it. These four fantastically clever men know their show, know each other, and apparently love every audience to distraction. In soggy contrast, the players at the Wilbur merely act--read the lines, go through the paces--never approaching the wildly imaginative conviction of the inventors themselves. The result is a diverting little production (for much of the material manages somehow to shine through the performances) sapped of all the radical, outrageous vitality that makes the New York show so glorious.

These road boys may lack spark, they may lack ingenuity, but they are no fools. So they have compensated. For enthusiasm they substitute buffoonery; for wit, volume; for satire, ridicule.

Perhaps some New Yorker advised the road company that Boston folks just wouldn't respond to British restraint. At any rate, these young men feel compelled to land on every laugh-line with elephantine emphasis. This is hardly what Beyond The Fringe (really quite a subtle piece) or English humor in general is all about.

In a U. N. discussion after Khrushchev had concluded a most noisy diatribe, which he climaxed by removing his shoe and beating it upon the podium, Harold Macmillan looked up blandly into the TV cameras. "Would someone mind translating the gentleman's remarks" he murmurred. How caustic! How arid! How British! Now, imagine Red Skelton impersonating Macmillan. No more snap and crackle than yesterday's milk-logged Rice Krispies.

Still and all, Beyond The Fringe boasts a smashing script which sticks everyone from Beethoven to Christine Keeler right in the bloody ribs, where it tickles and hurts. Ideally, hop down to New York and watch the authors act it with Beatle spirit, yet Macmillan-dry. Otherwise, buy the record. It's out on Capital.