Marty Feldman conquered radio comedy in the 1960s as one of the two writers of Round the Horne and then television comedy as a performer in his own shows.
He also co-wrote two of the most famous sketches in British television comedy: the Class sketch (with John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett) for The Frost Report and the Four Yorkshiremen sketch for At Last the 1948 Show, which he performed alongside Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese and Graham Chapman
After that Feldman went into films with diminishing returns. He died 1982 at the age of only 48.
Made in 1969, this film expounds his view of comedy and features contributions from Peter Sellers, Eric Morecambe and Denis Norden among others.
The jazz singer Annie Ross also appears. I watched this film at bedtime last night and when I looked at Twitter in the night I came across this news:
Annie Ross — the veteran jazz singer, actress and founding member of the historic vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross — died on Tuesday, four days before her 90th birthday.https://t.co/mXMccYeV97
— NPR (@NPR) July 22, 2020
Marty Feldman first made his mark on Educating Archie, taking over from Ronnie Wolfe as Ronald Chesney's writing partner.
ReplyDeleteAn almost forgotten comedy genius. Marty was up there with Spike Milligan, Galton and Simpson, Clement and Le Fresnais and David Nobbs as a progenitor of left-field, cutting edge comedy. More on him at my blog, www.genxculture.com
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