• Peter Cook Christie Brinkley
• Chris Morris Nba

1994 saw one of Peter Cooks most acclaimed performances since his 1960's heyday. Chris Morris' surreal and inventive questions brought out the very best of eccentric aristocrat Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling - a character whom Cook had carried with him through Beyond the Fringe and Not Only…But Also…to his latter years.

Jul 04, 2008 Five interviews as heard on BBC Radio 3. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Written by Chris Morris, Peter Cook, Audiobook narrated by Chris Morris, Peter Cook. Sign-in to download and listen to this audiobook today! First time visiting Audible? Get this book free when you sign up for a 30-day Trial. Peter Cook/Chris Morris transcript Broadcast on Radio 3 a year before Cook's death on January 9th, 1995, the following are extracts from five rare conversations recorded by the confused, rambling and, best of all, hugely offensive Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling (who made his first appearance in Not Only But Also in 1965, where he spoke about.

These five interviews recall Streeb Greebling's early years (sent to prison at the age of four by his father ) and his life before and after the incident with the eels. It looks back at his days of extreme comfort in a Japanese POW camp and his attempts to mediate in the Rodney-King LA riots. Streeb-Greebling discusses his habit of strangling business partners, reveals his plans to capitalise on his discovery of the fossilised remains of the infant Christ and attempts to begin an extremely tedious anecdote about bee-keeping.

Publication Details

Format

• OverDrive MP3 Audiobook 22.7 MB
• OverDrive Listen 22.6 MB

Chris Morris (Author)

Christopher Morris is an English comedian, writer, director, actor, voice actor, and producer. He is known for his black humour, surrealism, and controversial subject matter, and has been hailed for his 'uncompromising, moralistic drive' by the Br...

Chris Morris (Narrator)

Christopher Morris is an English comedian, writer, director, actor, voice actor, and producer. He is known for his black humour, surrealism, and controversial subject matter, and has been hailed for his 'uncompromising, moralistic drive' by the Br...

Creators

Why Bother? is a comedy radio series made for BBC Radio 3, consisting of five 10-minute-long spoof interviews between Chris Morris and Peter Cook's character Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling. Recorded in late 1993, the show was originally broadcast from 10–14 January 1994. Cook received the sole writing credit whilst Morris also produced the series, although the pair ad-libbed the majority of the dialogue, which Morris then edited.

Peter Cook Christie Brinkley

Morris played a variation on the abrasive interviewer character he had created in On the Hour and later used in The Day Today. The short pieces provide further insights into the Streeb-Greebling character that Cook had created for Not Only... But Also in 1965.

Subjects[edit]

Topics of conversation include Streeb-Greebling's experiments on eels, his role in the racial violence during the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King trial, his military career, including his time in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp during World War II, and his habit of strangling his business partners. The listener learns that Streeb-Greebling was put in prison by his father at the age of four, once spent a 'year and a quarter' standing on Lake Ontario with only bears for company, and hears of his next project: cloning from the fossilised remains of the infant Christ with the assistance of BMW, Honda and Sony.

Interview style[edit]

When questioned on how structured the interviews were, Morris replied that the pair had agreed to 'just shoot from the hip' and that 'the preparation that existed, existed only in terms of the things we had already done', with each of the characters being familiar roles. Morris described the recording:

It was a very different style of improvisation from what I'd been used to, because those On the Hour and The Day Today things were about trying to establish a character within a situation, and Peter Cook was really doing 'knight's move' and 'double knight's move' thinking to construct jokes or ridiculous scenes flipping back on themselves, and then proceeded to skip about mentally with the agility of a grasshopper. Really quite extraordinary.^[1]

Reception[edit]

Reviewing the CD release in 1999, The Guardian wrote 'this flimsy collection of five short interviews [...] leaves you wondering why you did bother'.^[2]

Chris Morris Nba

On an episode of With Great Pleasure, John Finnemore cited Why Bother? as one of his favorite pieces of comedy, citing a moment in the track 'Bears' in which Cook attempts to move on from a subject and Morris prompts him to improvise further.

CD release[edit]

The complete series was released on CD and cassette through BBC Radio Collection in 1999, with the show intros and credits removed to create a tight 50-minute comedy album presumably designed to evoke the Derek and Clive records.

Episode/track listing[edit]

1. 'Eels, Love and Guns'
2. 'Bears'
3. 'Christ'
4. 'Prisoner of War'
5. 'Drugs etc'

References[edit]

1. ^'Chris Morris interview'. Originally in Publish & Bedazzled #13. The Establishment - The Spiggott. Retrieved 14 March 2014.
2. ^Kingston, Peter (6 March 1999). '[Why Bother? review]'. The Guardian.