Search - Derek & Clive :: Come Again

"Shoot him, Kurt!"

VINCENT J MULVIHILL | Chicago, Illinois United States | 11/21/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

""You stupid c**t," berates Peter Cook at the top of this disc to the unsuspecting listener. "You just bought this record... expecting comedy and a few dirty words." "But what you don't know," adds Dudley Moore, "is there's f**k all on this side." "So what you're going to get now is a long f**king pause, you stupid c**t," retorts Cook. Then silence. That's how "Come Again" begins, and the rest of the disc maintains this in-your-face improvised humor for nearly 80 minutes. Spurred on by Dudley Moore's tendency to break up laughing, Peter Cook lays down some brilliantly decadent (or decadently brilliant) riffs on everything from cancer ("I wouldn't have thought of [cancer] if I was the Supreme Being... I would have left that out") to cabs ("I had Pablo Picasso in my cab... I said, I'm going to call you Pablo Picass'ole"), mostly delivered in the thickest Cockney accent. As comedy routines, the material does not fly really and would not translate well outside of this medium. But as improvisations, the material is brilliant and completely live (which is not something you can say about either Cook or Moore now), the duo displaying an amazing contrast to their work in `Not Only But Also', `Bedazzled' and `Beyond the Fringe'. This is a feat not achieved by any other solo or group comedy acts before or since and the Derek & Clive discs remain a stunningly original compliment to those works. This is not to say I think Moore and Cook do no wrong. 'Coughing Match' is silly. 'Members Only' is woefully too long. And a few others drift. The team only made three Derek & Clive discs, which is more than enough of THIS kind of thing. But, taken for what it is - two lads having a blast, often while blasted - `Come Again' is a great disc.Technically speaking, the disc suffers from the producer occasionally putting Cook in one speaker and Moore in the other, and since Cook bellows louder, Moore's observations are sometimes obliterated. However, this is a minor criticism, as the freshness and rough quality of the `text' was the point in the first place."

Bizarre, obscene, not fit for consumption...essential

Trevor Seigler | South Carolina | 09/13/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I think it's a bold thing to start off your album with a verbal abuse-fest against your listeners for buying the thing, so right away you know you're in for something completely different than what you normally think of as "British comedy" when you put on the first track of "Derek and Clive Come Again".



The alter-egos of legendary duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, "Derek and Clive" came about as a way for the two to relieve stress over Moore's Hollywood success and Cook's lack of it. What followed was an exercise in gutter-minded improv. Forget "Whose Line is It, Anyway?", nothing is off-limits to these two over the course of twenty obscene and obscenely funny tracks.



I've only had this album for a day or so, but I can feel safe in saying this is probably the crudest and funniest comedy vinyl ever laid down. "Non Stop Dancer/My Mum Song", "Joan Crawford", "Mother", "Having a W--K", "Back of The Cab", "In The Cubicles", these are not fit for family listening. But they'll have you in hysterics late at night, when no one else can overhear it.



I've been looking to get some Cook-and-Moore material on album since I first started reading about British comedy, but this is my first. I plan eventually to get my hands on the "Beyond the Fringe" material that led them to fame, fortune, and lifelong boozing (boozing which contributes to the alcohol-sourced improvisations that make this such a hoot), but for now this is a nice introduction. It may not be the high-water mark of intelligent, urbane, measured British satire. But it's pretty damn funny all the same.



So jump, you f--ker, jump. And buy this record asap. If you like good, clean filth, this is right up your alley."

THE REVOLT AGAINST THE BORING SELF ABSORBED WORLD OF POLITI

CHRIS BARNES | CHRIS BARNES | 06/23/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If there is anything more that i hate in this world than man hating biker lesbians its political corectness. anyway this is a great album so buy it because if you dont i will do it back door style with your wife and take a dump and force your wife and children to eat it."