Different take on Pete and Dud

Tom Goodman-Hill (as Peter Cook) and Mark Mansfield (as Dudley Moore) pay tribute to the duo's witty shows.

Before video, internet and satellite television, a transplanted English family sat in their Kenyan living-room wondering why there was yet another wildlife documentary on television when they could see the real thing from their window.

After the news in Swahili and the farm reports, something different from the usual TV fare crackled on to the screen. It was a black-and-white British comedy show, poking fun at everything from the Cold War to the vagaries of the English language.

The family laughed uproariously and from then on their young son was allowed to stay up late once a week to watch Not Only But Also, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's 1960s comedy sketch show.

It formed a lasting memory for playwright Nick Awde who, more than three decades later, brings a tribute to the duo from London's West End to its international premiere at the North Shore's Bruce Mason Centre.

Pete & Dud: Come Again, written by Awde and fellow journalist Chris Bartlett, celebrates Cook and Moore by offering a different take on their collaboration. It looks at it from Moore's point of view.

Cook and Moore began their partnership with Beyond the Fringe, a student-style revue performed in a late-night slot of the 1960 Edinburgh Festival. They went on to record comedy albums and in the nascent days of television got their own show, Not Only But Also.

They toured internationally, including to New Zealand in the early 1970s, and set the blueprint for hundreds of other comedians. However, many remain unaware of their legacy.

Mark Mansfield, who plays Dudley Moore in Pete and Dud: Come Again, admits he was surprised to discover Moore had a whole other career before Hollywood films such as Arthur and 10.

Mansfield, who turns 30 this year, says he didn't know anything about the duo until he was asked to audition for Pete and Dud: Come Again.

His agent rang him on a Friday afternoon to tell him of the Saturday morning audition so Mansfield high-tailed it to the video store and spent the night watching DVDs.

His father is a big fan but others Mansfield spoke to indicated they had lost interest in Cook and Moore when the two began performing as Derek and Clive. Alternatively, Tom Goodman-Hill, who plays Peter Cook in the stage show, says their comedy is more cerebral than physical and may not have translated so easily around the world.

However, to watch their early work is to see the genius of sketches performed by everyone from Monty Python through to Harry Enfield.

Awde got the idea for a play taking a fresh look at the duo when he realised that the few websites dedicated to Moore neglected his partnership with Cook.

Chris Bartlett, who discovered "Pete and Dud" through listening to his father's albums of the two, agrees many have overlooked Moore's contributions.

"Peter Cook led a quite disconnected life in many respects," says Bartlett. "He was the son of a diplomat who travelled extensively and he had a public school education. Dudley Moore brought him down to earth.

"Dudley was a natural performer, a loveable character audiences could identify with. Peter Cook was in the driving seat but it was Dudley Moore's [working class] upbringing that he appropriated and fed on."

Awde and Bartlett discovered their shared love of 60s and 70s British comedy while working on British entertainment newspaper, The Stage.

Deciding to pool their talents and write a play, they immersed themselves in the world of Cook and Moore, watching, re-watching and watching again video footage of the duo as well as listening to their albums over and over.

Given that he alone sees up to 250 plays annually, Awde says he and Bartlett were in an apt position to know what works - and does not - for theatre.

They wrote with a general audience in mind, some of whom would not remember or even know of Not Only But Also and the later Derek and Clive albums.

Rather than a show consisting solely of Cook and Moore gags and wisecracks, it combines drama, humour, flashback sequences and the writers' own takes on the duo's sketches.

It starts with Moore (Mansfield) being interviewed on that quintessential British television institution, the chat show. There's an interruption from the audience and Peter Cook (Goodman-Hill) steps forward to remind Moore of the good old days.

But memory can play tricks of its own and as the story unfolds, the duo's constant rivalry and respective personal battles with drink and women pull them in opposite directions.

* Performance

What: Pete and Dud: Come Again

Where and when: Bruce Mason Centre, June 16-25