Fringe Benefits

"OH, YES, it was very rigorous," relates the man onstage, describing the exam which prevented him from becoming a judge and forced him to a dreary life down in the coal mines. "Very rigorous indeed. Noted for its rigor. People would walk out of it and say, 'My God, that was rigorous!'"

No one walked out of Winthrop JCR last week saying that, for Beyond the Fringe is not at all rigorous. It is the very quintessence of non-rigorousity. The epitome of that which lacks rigor. It takes rigorousness and knees it in the groin. De rigeur.

Instead of rigor, the Winthrop House Drama Society presentation of 20 skits provided two hours of light, welcome, reliably funny absurdity that ranged from the amusing to the hilarious.

Known in the United States primarily as a sporadic PBS warm-up for Monty Python fans, Beyond the Fringe began as a stage show at the 1959 Edinburgh Festival, then performed for London and New York audiences before two of its four members--Peter Cook and Dudley Moore--brought it to the BBC in 1965.

Like Python, Beyond the Fringe specializes in heavily satiric parodies of the moronic aspects of "the hurly-burly of modern existence," as exemplified by the morons themselves--the twit who shows up at an opera he does not like 497 times in the hope of catching a glimpse of the royal family, the Scotland Yard detective with all the intellect (if not looks) of an iguana in heat, the one-footed man ("unidexter" is the term used) who wants to try out for the role of Tarzan.

THE MOST COMMON method used in this healthy ridicule is exaggeration, as in the case of stuffed-mind Prince Philip (Paul Redford), who reeks of nobility as he struts onto the set of "Studio 5."

"I understand you were recently in Africa celebrating the independence of Kenya," his talk-show host offers.

"No," the Prince replies, "They were. I was there in a purely symbolic capacity."

"Oh, I see. What were you symbolizing, then?"

"Capitulation." The skit concludes as Philip and the talk show's two other guests, a Labor Party representative (Chris Clemenson) and the British Minister of Science (Brian McCue), stand about in awkward silence until Philip raises his glass in a toast. "My health," he says.

Or Clemenson in "The Great Train Robbery." His face bulging and mind oozing, the inspector explicated the crime. "When you speak of train robbery, I want to emphasize that this involved no loss of train, merely its contents. We haven't lost one since the blizzard of 1946, when we misplaced a small one." Well, then, who could have perpetrated the crime? Clemenson leans forward ominously, wrinkles his brow, and emits his conclusive response. "We believe this to be the work of thieves." Oh, so thieves are responsible? "Oh, good heavens, no! I believe the thieves are irresponsible."

Beyond the Fringe leaves few topics untouched, including of course, "the sex element, which is so vital to us in these troubled times."

"I like the kind of women," says George Hunt in one skit, "who will just rip off all her clothing and throw herself upon you with rancid sensuality."

"Yes, yes," replies Brian McCue, "but don't you mean rampant sensuality?"

"Quite right, quite right. As long as she throws herself upon you, that's the key. I always like a good rampant woman."

THE CAST IS uniformly superb and convincingly British. Redford looks like he arrived straight from a rugby match at Wembley Stadium, while Hunt, his face set in an eternal mischievous grin, could be in Eton taunting the protagonist of The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Stout and full-faced, Clemenson is the show's most consistently hysterics-inducing actor.

McCue--wimpy, paranoid and afflicted with a terminal semi-stoop in all his roles-- also directs Beyond the Fringe, without any noticeable problems. The only minor quibble, probably inherent with this kind of material (as in Monty Python and Saturday Night Live), lies in the skits' occasionally flat endings. Monty Python just switches to a cartoon when it can't find a way to finish a routine and there's always the applause sign for Saturday Night Live. Beyond the Fringe doesn't have these options

But the quality of acting and material easily overcomes these minor difficulties--the sketch or two that is cornier than it is funny, or the rare blown line. The sharp British humor proves as effective in Cambridge as it does in Cambridge.