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John Bassett (born 1934) is the person credited with putting together the talent for the Edinburgh International Festival revue, Beyond the Fringe , in 1960.
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John Bassett (born 1934) is the person credited with putting together the talent for the Edinburgh International Festival revue, Beyond the Fringe , in 1960.
As a student at Wadham College, Oxford, John Bassett led a traditional jazz ensemble, called the Bassett Hounds. Fellow student Dudley Moore, attending Magdalen College, Oxford on an organ scholarship, played piano in Bassett's band. The band performed always on Saturday evenings and usually throughout the week in the Union cellars (a part of the Oxford Union buildings and grounds, which had just been opened by Michael Heseltine, at that time the Union President).
After graduating from Oxford, Bassett was hired by the artistic director of the Edinburgh International Festival Robert Ponsonby as his Assistant (on a salary of £11 a week). Ponsonby, himself a one-time Oxford man and organ scholar, was looking for a different type of late evening entertainment for the festival programme. For this time slot, he suggested to Bassett that they should put on their own revue "to beat The Fringe at its own game."
Bassett's had three initial choices for the revue. [1] Firstly his Oxford bandmate, Dudley Moore, who was not only a brilliant musician in all disciplines, but had gained courage through performing with the band, and had become an outstanding cabaret performer. Through booking his band at a number of West End hotels, as well as the May and Commem Balls and various Deb Dances, Bassett had also brought forward Jonathan Miller for the occasional cabaret work (to boost his medical student salary) for what might be called 'a second time', as Jonathan had already made his comic mark while at Cambridge with The Footlights. Bassett knew Miller because Miller's wife had been at the same school (Bedales) as Bassett. Bassett had also organised a large number of gigs for Alan Bennett, who was at Exeter College, just up the road from Wadham, so much so that Alan had asked him to cut the number down, as he wanted to continue his post-graduate studies. Moore had already appeared on the Fringe in the 1958 Oxford revue. in turn, recommended him. Bassett booked Bennett after seeing him in a bit of cabaret. Miller welcomed the opportunity to join the venture, which was only envisaged to run a week at the Festival, as a way to make a bit of extra money, and escape the strains of medical work. But Miller turned out to be the talent scout for the last member to be recruited for the revue. He had seen this magical performer at what was called a "Footlights Smoker" an ad hoc performance where sketches are tried out before being publicly performed. The writer/performer was none other than the about-to-become legendary Peter Cook. In fact, he had already written for producer Michael Codron some sketches for a revue called, 'Pieces of Eight' and had followed that up by writing an entire revue called 'One over the Eight'. Cook would become the principal writer for the Edinburgh revue 'Beyond the Fringe'imbuing it with a sensibility, in Miller's words, "at right-angles" to all known comedy at the time.
The first meeting of the major talent selected for Ponsonby's challenge to The Fringe was tense, according to Bassett, with each participant not wanting to break the ice with a joke, in case the others didn't find it funny. The ice was finally broken when Moore did an imitation of Groucho Marx in the restaurant where they met. "He got up in this Italian restaurant and followed one of the waitresses through the swinging doors to the kitchen immediately coming out of the other swinging doors with another waitress." Bassett considered this moment the contributors relaxed and realised the whole idea of Beyond the Fringe would work.
It is possible that the Festival's finances rather than the talent of the four, were the driving force behind the formation of the revue. Louis Armstrong had been booked in the time slot eventually allotted to the revue. Unfortunately, Armstrong's agent could not keep to the commitment having failed to book other gigs in the UK due to Musician's Union pressure, and therefore could not justify the trip to Edinburgh. This cancellation forced Ponsonby's decision to put together the revue at the last minute.
By the time Beyond the Fringe opened in London, Bassett had been 'rowed out' by Cook's Agent (Donald Langdon) and was no longer fully involved. However, he went to the States for the Broadway opening, and kept in touch with all four, right up to the deaths of Cook and Moore, writing monthly to him in the States until his death in 2002. Bassett is still in tenuous touch with Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.
Bassett was also involved as an Assistant Producer in the television programs, That Was the Week That Was and Late Night Line-Up, and subsequently discovered Eric Chappell (author of Rising Damp, Only when I laugh, Duty Free, and many others) who till that time had been an Internal Audit Clerk for East Midlands Electricity.
Following his television career, John went on to run a hotel barge on the canals of Burgundy in France. In the early 1990s John bought the Dutch barge 'La Belle Aventure' which he successfully ran for several years. John is a natural story teller, which coupled with his entertaining character and amusing collection of stories from his days in the theatre and TV, ensured that passengers were always well entertained; John was always popular with his largely American clientele on the barge. A perfect command of French and an effortless charm (particularly with the lady lock-keepers) ensured that John was also always popular on the canals of Burgundy. John was welcomed from one season to the next by the many and varied characters alongside his routes through France on the barge.
La Belle Aventure was an 85 foot long Dutch barge, built in the early years of the 19th century, originally for crying cargo on the waterways of Holland and Belgium. The barge was converted, before John's ownership of her, to carry up to eight passengers. John's approach was to appeal to all ages, but at the more 'mid-market' end of barging holidays. Rather than compete with the luxurious all-inclusive end of the barge holiday market, John actively appealed to families with children, carrying a sailing dinghy and children bicycles on board. Accommodation on board was very comfortable, with two bathrooms and three separate double cabins and occasional accommodation in the salon, with crew accommodation in the aft cabin and wheelhouse. Breakfast and lunch were served on board, with dinner being taken in a canal side restaurant or auberge. John ran a minibus alongside the barge, in order to take passengers out to sites of interest along the route – John had an excellent knowledge of the chateaux of Burgundy and the history of the region.
The canals that John travelled with the barge were the primarily the Canal de Bourgogne and the Canal du Nivernais, both much loved by him for their bucolic beauty and rural charm. The final season for La Belle Aventure saw her move slowly down the length of France from a freezing Amsterdam in early spring 1996 to the baking heat of the Mediterranean by July and then inland, almost to Bordeaux. Sadly, due to ill health, John didn't complete the final season on the barge down to the Mediterranean, and at the end of 1996 La Belle Aventure was sold. A short, but delightful chapter in John Bassett's rich and varied life. [2]
Peter Edward Cook was an English comedian, actor, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishment comedic movement that emerged in the United Kingdom in the late 1950s.
Dudley Stuart John Moore CBE was an English actor, comedian, musician and composer. Moore first came to prominence in the UK as a leading figure in the British satire boom of the 1960s. He was one of the four writer-performers in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe from 1960 that created a boom in satiric comedy. With a member of that team, Peter Cook, Moore collaborated on the BBC television series Not Only... But Also. As a popular double act, Moore's buffoonery contrasted with Cook's deadpan monologues. They jointly received the 1966 British Academy Television Award for Best Entertainment Performance and worked together on other projects until the mid-1970s, by which time Moore had settled in Los Angeles to concentrate on his film acting.
Beyond the Fringe was a British comedy stage revue written and performed by Alan Bennett, Peter Cook, Jonathan Miller, and Dudley Moore. It debuted at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival and went on to play in London's West End and then in America, both on tour and on New York's Broadway in the early 1960s. Hugely successful, it is widely regarded as seminal to the "satire boom", the rise of satirical comedy in 1960s Britain.
Alan Bennett is an English playwright, author, actor and screenwriter. Over his entertainment career he has received numerous awards and honours including two BAFTA Awards, four Laurence Olivier Awards, and two Tony Awards. He also earned an Academy Award nomination for his film The Madness of King George (1994). In 2005 he received the Society of London Theatre Special Award.
The Cambridge Footlights, commonly referred to simply as Footlights, is a student sketch comedy troupe located in Cambridge, England. Footlights was founded in 1883, and is one of Britain's oldest student sketch comedy troupes. The comedy society is run by the students of Cambridge University.
Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller CBE was an English theatre and opera director, actor, author, television presenter, humourist and physician. After training in medicine and specialising in neurology in the late 1950s, he came to prominence in the early 1960s in the comedy revue Beyond the Fringe with Peter Cook, Dudley Moore and Alan Bennett.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the world's largest performance arts festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 different shows in 322 venues. Established in 1947 as an alternative to the Edinburgh International Festival, it takes place in Edinburgh every August. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe has become a world-leading celebration of arts and culture, surpassed only by the Olympics and the World Cup in terms of global ticketed events. As an event it "has done more to place Edinburgh in the forefront of world cities than anything else" according to historian and former chairman of the board, Michael Dale.
A revue is a type of multi-act popular theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance, and sketches. The revue has its roots in 19th century popular entertainment and melodrama but grew into a substantial cultural presence of its own during its golden years from 1916 to 1932. Though most famous for their visual spectacle, revues frequently satirized contemporary figures, news or literature. Similar to the related subforms of operetta and musical theatre, the revue art form brings together music, dance and sketches to create a compelling show. In contrast to these, however, revue does not have an overarching storyline. Rather, a general theme serves as the motto for a loosely related series of acts that alternate between solo performances and dance ensembles.
The satire boom was the output of a generation of British satirical writers, journalists and performers at the beginning of the 1960s. The satire boom is often regarded as having begun with the first performance of Beyond the Fringe on 22 August 1960 and ending around December 1963 with the cancellation of the BBC TV show That Was The Week That Was. The figures most closely identified with the satire boom are Peter Cook, John Bird, John Fortune, David Frost, Dudley Moore, Bernard Levin and Richard Ingrams. Many figures who found celebrity through the satire boom went on to establish subsequently more serious careers as writers including Alan Bennett (drama), Jonathan Miller (polymathic), and Paul Foot.
The Experimental Theatre Club (ETC) is a student dramatic society at the University of Oxford, England. It was founded in 1936 by Nevill Coghill as an alternative company to the Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), and produces several productions a year.
The Cambridge University Light Entertainment Society (CULES) is a student drama society at Cambridge University. Notable alumni include Douglas Adams, John Cleese, Prince Edward, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Andy Hamilton and Graeme Garden.
The Edinburgh Comedy Awards are presented to the comedy shows deemed to have been the best at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. Established in 1981, they are the most prestigious comedy prize in the United Kingdom. The awards have been directed and produced by Nica Burns since 1984.
The Oxford Revue is a comedy group primarily featuring students from Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University, England. Founded in the early 1950s, The Oxford Revue has produced many prominent comedians, actors and satirists. The Revue writes, produces and performs several shows each term in the pubs and theatres around Oxford, as well as touring to cities in the United Kingdom and performing a month-long run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year.
The Free Fringe is an organisation that promotes free shows during the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, every August.
The Cambridge Footlights Revue is an annual revue by the Footlights Club, a group of comedy writer-performers at the University of Cambridge. Three of the more notable revues are detailed below.
Frisky & Mannish is a British musical comedy double act, created and performed by singer Laura Corcoran and pianist-singer Matthew Floyd Jones. Known for their pop music parodies, the duo have toured the fringe festival and comedy festival circuits in the United Kingdom and Australia, and appeared on a number of British television and radio programmes. The act's name derives from two incidental characters mentioned in one couplet of Byron's Don Juan: "Lady Fitz-Frisky, and Miss Maevia Mannish, / Both longed extremely to be sung in Spanish"
A hotel barge is a barge that has been built or converted to serve as a hotel or other kind of lodging. Hotel barges are generally found on rivers and canals in Europe, and may be used for river cruises or permanently moored in one place.
Peter Buckley Hill is a musical comedian and head of the Free Fringe at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, for which he was, in 2009, awarded the Panellists' Edinburgh Comedy Award. In 2008, he was nominated for the Malcolm Hardee Award for Comic Originality.
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Jason Forbes is a British actor, writer, comedian, impressionist, and TV presenter. He is best known for the CITV series Horrible Science; The Mash Report on BBC Two; as PC Peasey in the Professor Branestawm movies on BBC One; and as a member of the award-winning sketch trio 'Daphne'.