Pieces Of 8 [An Original Cast Recording]

The twenty-one year old Peter Cook made his mark in the theatre with his brilliant sketches for this famous revue, produced in London in 1959. This original cast recording from Decca starred two of the greatest revue artists of the twentieth century: the gnomic Kenneth Williams and the vampish Fenella Fielding. With other material from such as Harold Pinter, Laurie Johnson and Sandy Wilson, Pieces of Eight represents a high-point in revue, when literacy and wit ruled, and the art of the surreal thrived. Two of Williams’ pieces, ‘Not an asp’ and ‘The last to go’ reveal him as a unique revue performer, and he is joined by Fielding in the eternally funny ‘If only’. Music, a strong feature in revues of this period, is well to the fore with songs from Myra de Groot, contributing to an atmosphere that seems to have vanished with the revues it inhabited