Long before Rock 'N Roll arrived, one of John Lennon's passions was
writing and illustrating satirical pieces in his school notebooks. A
great fan of Lewis Carroll, his imagery could be surreal and
distorted, cementing a style in childhood that would carry over into his later
work as an author and musician. Lennon grew up listening to The Goons
and his sense of humor can be traced to the context of Britain's own satire and
surrealism boom in the late 1950s and 1960s. I honor John Lennon's
passing today with a brief into this lineage of comedic pioneers, from Peter
Sellers and Peter Cook, to John Lennon and Monty Python. Videos below: Lennon
reads two poems in the mid-1960s and offers humorous ads for Tobias Sportwear during a radio DJ show in the 1970s.
With the rise of youth culture and a questioning of
traditional class roles, social satire became the new frontier in late
1950s/early 1960s British humor. Following in the footsteps of Peter Sellers
and The Goons, who offered a wild send-up of British characters and institutions, young
comedians like Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of Beyond the Fringe and
the future members of Monty Python became the acerbic voice of their
generation. Some of the popular targets included class, the generation gap,
authority, official media, media styles/conventions, education, family, and the
job market. Comedy fans may recall Beyond the Fringe skits like The Great Train Robbery and
my favorite below, One Leg Too Few. Film fans may remember John Schlesinger's Billy
Liar (Tom Courtenay/1963) for its blend of satire and fantasy. John Lennon
played a key role in this satirical climate, with his James Thurber-like books
of cartoons and poetry, In His Own Write (1964)
and A Spaniard in the Works (1965).
Surrealism experienced a major renaissance in the early-mid
1960s. Long before the mind-altering psychedelia that we associate with the
decade was introduced, influential artists like John Lennon were
already thinking outside the box. Inspired by the surrealism of Lewis Carroll,
Lennon and others challenged the status quo with a playful and eschewed view.
One figure who loomed large in this movement was an American ex-pat in London
named Richard Lester, who had worked with The Goons on television projects. At
the dawn of the sixties, he collaborated with Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan on a
short film called the Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1960).
John Lennon, a fan of The Goons, loved the movie and kept Lester in mind when
it came time for The Beatles to make a motion picture. Seeing a clip from Running
Jumping below, readers will recognize a gag which emerged in Monty
Python years later called the Fish-Slapping Dance.
Richard Lester was picked to direct The Beatles in A
Hard Day's Night (1964), also groundbreaking for its surreal segments, and he
went on to direct the band in Help! (The Beatles/1965) and
Lennon in How I Won the War (Tom Courtenay/John Lennon/1967). Lester
also teamed with James Bond composer, John Barry, in two major pieces for the
1960s, The Knack... and How to Get it (Rita Tushingham/1965)
and Petulia (Julie Christie/1968). Fans of The Monkees might
recognize a surreal scene inspired by The Knack, where the characters
wheel a bed through traffic.
The surreal and whimsical work of Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
resonated throughout the Arts in early-mid sixties England. John Lennon often
listed the author as a big influence on his own imagery (see I am the
Walrus below). A notable celebration of Lewis Carroll came in 1966 with
the BBC's production of The Wednesday Play. With a soundtrack by Ravi Shankar, this surreal Alice in
Wonderland film starred a who's who of British talent, including Peter Sellers
(Goons/Pink Panther), Wilfrid Brambell (A Hard Days Night), Leo McKern, Sir
Michael Redgrave, Eric Idle (Monty Python), Sir John Gielgud, and all four
members of Beyond the Fringe, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett,
and writer/director, Jonathan Miller. Most of the cast would appear again in a 1972 Alice film. Spy fans will recognize a number of
actors in the film for their appearances in surreal action shows
like The Avengers and The Prisoner. Video below: clips from Alice in Wonderland.
An element that is pointed out when discussing the
performance style of the period is the breaking of the fourth wall (when
actors speak directly to the audience). This was not a new technique. Eugene
O'Neill is one playwright who employed it in his play, Strange Interlude. This
was parodied in the 1930s by the Marx Brothers, when Groucho actually spoke of
"corridors." The convention was also seen in the wartime and post-war
comedies by Bob Hope and the Warner Brothers animation studio. The sudden,
snappy interplay between character and viewer was hip again in the 1960s. This convention
of storytelling had an element of participation that I believe created a deeper
level of engagement with the largely young audience. As viewers saw Julie
Christie interact on-screen with a TV soap opera in Fahrenheit 451 (1966),
films like Alfie (1966), How I Won the War (1967),
and The Knack...and How to Get it (1965) actually put the
movie-going viewer right into the action. Below: Lennon segments in How I Won the War.
Additional Viewing: Essential favorites from the
satire/surrealism boom also include The Wrong Box (Michael
Caine/Peter Cook/Dudley Moore/1966) Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-1974), Not Only But Also (Peter
Cook/Dudley Moore/1965-1970), Bedazzled (Peter Cook/Dudley
Moore/1967), The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (Peter Cook/1970), The Bed Sitting Room (Richard Lester/Peter Cook/Rita Tushingham/1969), and Magical Mystery Tour (The Beatles/1967). Lennon incorporated an odd dream into the movie where he shoveled pasta onto a "fat lady's" plate. My particular favorite sequence is this musical visualization for I Am the Walrus.
