"We're the Goodies, Yes the Goodies, oh the Goodies are coming for you - ha ha ha ha!"
Cambridge Circus
In the year of 1962, Tim Brooke-Taylor became President of the Cambridge Footlights Society. Before Presidency, Tim, along with John Cleese and Graham Chapman, played at the 1962 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Only two people attended the first night, but by the end of the run they could expect an audience of up to a hundred. The revue for 1963 was A Clump of Plinths, an amalgamation of words which Tim and John Cleese liked. The revue’s cast comprised of Tim, John, David Hatch, Chris Stuart-Clark, Bill Oddie, Tony Buffery and Jo Kendall, with President Tim hiring Humphrey Barclay to direct. The sketches were also written by the cast, with Bill doing many of the show’s songs. The revue differed from past satirical revues (particularly Beyond the Fringe), opting for more of a music hall style instead. Sketches which appeared and disappeared during various points of Cambridge Circus’ life include, Automatic Hospital Visitor (Tim and Bill), Custard Pie/Jape Lecture (written by Terry Jones), London Bus (a gospel number featuring Bill et al), John and Mary (later a feature on I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again), The Oscar Wilde sketch (where Tim first flexed his Lady Constance de Coverlet muscles in a parody of Edith Evans) and the famous grand finale, Judge Not - a cast ensemble written by John Cleese over the course of nearly a year.
In Cambridge the revue was played to much acclaim and received plenty of attention from London theatres. The revue played for a week at the York Festival before opening in London on 10th July 1963 at the New Arts Theatre, where the show was now called Cambridge Circus. The run was extended from three weeks to five, meaning the cast could not perform at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August. This was amended with other Footlighters, including Eric Idle and Graeme Garden, travelling to the Fringe to perform the material. The original Cambridge Circus cast moved from the New Arts Theatre to the Lyric Theatre on the West End, where over a hundred performances were played to appreciative crowds and critics alike. It was at the Lyric Theatre where Graham Chapman joined the cast. The run lasted until November.
The London run resulted in an LP of the revue, which was produced by George Martin, who released his other album, the slightly more well-known With the Beatles the same week. This interested the BBC, who recruited the cast to record a compilation of best sketches for a Cambridge Circus special, which was broadcast on BBC Radio on 30th December 1963. The success of this special led to three pilot shows of I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, which were broadcast in April 1964. In May, the Cambridge Circus troupe (with new addition Jonathan Lynn replacing Chris Stuart-Clark) headed to New Zealand for a six week tour. Despite audience’s disappointment that the Circus was not of the clowns and animals variety, the show continued to generate much interest, with rumours abound that the show was going to be put on Broadway. Towards the end of the New Zealand run the rumours became true and, via a short stay in Hong Kong and a fleeting visit back home to London, the troupe travelled to New York.
The cast rehearsed in New York before opening at the Plymouth Theatre with its first of two preview nights on 3rd October 1964. The show then premiered on 6th October to generally good reviews. The cast appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show on 18th October to perform two sketches, but a poor review in the New York Times effectively killed the show on Broadway, which saw its final night on 24th October, lasting a total of 23 performances (plus the two previews). The show, however, was not over, and transferred to a small club called ‘Square East’ in Greenwich Village, where it stayed for a few months. Soon, however, the show was coming to an end with various cast members leaving, including Graham Chapman to continue his medical studies. The troupe eventually decided to go their separate ways and call it a day. The show was reworked with an American cast, but this proved a failure and was very short-lived. However, the majority of the remaining cast (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, John Cleese, David Hatch and Jo Kendall), along with Graeme Garden, reunited for I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again, which had its first series broadcast in October 1965. ISIRTA was a successful radio series that embodied the spirit of Cambridge Circus, and proved a springboard to take its performers to new comedy heights.
Compiled by Jess Pickles