... began as a means to refresh Pete & Dud's flagging comedy partnership, which was suffering from Cook's increasing use of alcohol and Moore's burgeoning Hollywood career. According to Wikipedia, Cook hired a recording studio in New York (where they were performing a review entitled Good Evening) so that the pair could relax, drink and amuse each other by exchanging ad–libs. The recordings became available as a bootleg record, then – as their popularity became clear – officially. Eventually there were three long–playing records (albums), plus one 'Best Of' album, a documentary film about the recording of the third album, and a book of transcripts of out–takes.
Derek and Clive were surreal extensions of Pete and Dud, as whom the duo had performed previously: two working–class men from Dagenham, Essex – Pete a pseudo–intellectual, with whom Dud tries to compete. The Derek and Clive recordings were unashamedly outrageous, being typically bizarre streams of consciousness from Cook interspersed with similar comments from Moore. In one of the most memorable sequences Clive, in response to a question from Derek, says that the worst job he ever had was retrieving lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's arsehole. (Wikipedia mentions several similar subjects.)
© Haydn Thompson 2023