The site of the Establishment, now home to Zebrano. The building has a green plaque commemorating Peter Cook's co-founding of the Establishment.
The Establishment was a Londonnightclub that opened in October 1961, at 18 Greek Street, Soho, and which became known in retrospect for satire although at the time was a venue more commonly booking jazz acts and used for other events. It was founded by Peter Cook and Nicholas Luard, both of whom were also important in the history of the magazine Private Eye. The name "The Establishment" is a play on the meaning of "establishment" as in "institution," i.e. the club itself, and the broader definition meaning the prevailing social order of the time, which the satirists who founded, funded and performed at the club typically undermined. A pun is suggested as, to be a member of this club, was to literally but not figuratively be a "member of the establishment". Peter Cook called it "the only good title I ever came up with."
The venue allowed the opportunity for budding comedians and satirists to perform new material in a nightclub setting, outside the jurisdiction of the Lord Chamberlain, whose censorship of language and content was a problem for many performers. Some who appeared included Lenny Bruce in 1962 (subsequently banned from entering the UK a year later), Barry Humphries (as Edna Everage), and musically, The Dudley Moore Trio. The Establishment, a tie-in album of comedy routines and sketches featuring John Bird, John Fortune, Eleanor Bron and Jeremy Geidt, was released on the Parlophone label in 1963.
A second club was established in New York City in 1963. However, both folded after only a few years. The Establishment in London closed in 1964.
In March 2008, the site of the club was renamed Zebrano's but after a small group of Peter Cook devotees, Sally Western, Jonathan Hansler and Robert Ross, pressured the management for some recognition of the old club's importance in satire, the owners agreed to place "The Establishment" in writing above the door. A green plaque was also positioned above the door by Westminster City Council after campaigning by the same group.
The Establishment was referenced in the book Stop-Time by author Frank Conroy. The book is a semi-autobiographical account of Conroy's own life, and he mentions getting drunk at The Establishment, and then racing his car home to his apartment outside London while he was living in England with his wife in the '60s. The Establishment also featured briefly in the semi-fictional Peter Cook and Dudley Moore biopic Not Only But Always (2004); seen only in an exterior shot, it bore no resemblance to 18 Greek Street.
Peter Edward Cook was an English actor, comedian, 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, and with a member of that team, Peter Cook, 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. They 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.
The Cocoanut Grove fire was a nightclub fire which took place in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, on November 28, 1942. It is the deadliest nightclub fire in U.S. history, claiming 492 lives, and the second-deadliest single-building fire.
Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University.
Bedazzled is a 1967 British comedy DeLuxe Color fantasy romantic black comedy film directed and produced by Stanley Donen in Panavision format. It was written by comedian Peter Cook and starred both Cook and his comedy partner Dudley Moore. It is a comic retelling of the Faust legend, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s. The Devil (Cook) offers an unhappy young man (Moore) seven wishes in return for his soul, but twists the spirit of the wishes to frustrate the man's hopes.
Not Only... But Also is a BBC British sketch comedy show starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that aired in three series between 1964 and 1970.
A bouncer is a type of security guard, employed at venues such as bars, nightclubs, cabaret clubs, stripclubs, casinos, hotels, billiard halls, restaurants, sporting events, schools, or concerts. A bouncer's duties are to provide security, to check legal age and drinking age, to refuse entry for intoxicated persons, and to deal with aggressive behavior or non-compliance with statutory or establishment rules.
Charles William Donaldson was a British satirist, writer, playboy and, under the pseudonym of Henry Root, author of The Henry Root Letters.
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.
Off-color humor is humor that deals with topics that may be considered to be in poor taste or vulgar. Many comedic genres may incorporate "off-color" elements.
Derek and Clive was a double act of comedic characters created by Dudley Moore (Derek) and Peter Cook (Clive) in the 1970s. The performances were captured on the records Derek and Clive (Live) (1976), Derek and Clive Come Again (1977), and Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam (1978), as well as in a film documentary, Derek and Clive Get the Horn (1979). Upon release, more than 100,000 copies of Derek and Clive (Live) were sold in the United Kingdom.
Derek and Clive (Live) is the debut comedy record recorded by Derek and Clive, drunken alter-egos created by comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. The double act began as a private joke between the two of them at the Electric Lady Studios, as a way of easing the tension of their 1973 Broadway show Good Evening. Originally, the record was never intended for release, but when bootleg copies of the recordings proved popular, Cook decided there was money to be made and, padding the record out with live material recorded at the Bottom Line in New York City, the album was released in 1976. The record was very nearly called Derek and Clive (Dead).
The Bottom Line was a music venue at 15 West 4th Street between Mercer Street and Greene Street in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. During the 1970s and 1980s the club was a major space for small-scale popular music performances. It opened on Feb 11, 1974.
Dean Street is a street in Soho, central London, running from Oxford Street south to Shaftesbury Avenue.
The Raymond Revuebar (1958–2004) was a theatre and strip club at 11 Walker's Court, in the centre of London's Soho district. For many years, it was the only venue in London that offered full-frontal, on-stage nudity of the sort commonly seen in other cities in Europe and North America. Its huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment" made the Revuebar a local landmark.
Prince Henry's Room is situated on the first floor at the front of No. 17 Fleet Street, London. The house is one of the few surviving buildings in the City of London dating from before the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is a Grade II* Listed Building.
Judy Huxtable is a British actress.
The Blue Angel, also known as "The Raz" is a nightclub in Liverpool, England. It is located where Seel Street meets Berry Street in Liverpool city centre. It is a venue in Liverpool in which The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and many other bands played at in the 1960s. It was historically a jazz club, but it now plays pop music.
Rude & Rare: The Best of Derek and Clive is a greatest hits album starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as their characters Derek and Clive. The collection contains two discs: the first featuring selected tracks from two of the previous three Derek and Clive albums. The second disc contains previously unreleased material.
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