h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know that Cook has achieved an iconic status among other comedians but as far as Joe Public goes he's a minor player. Certainly in his later years, he performed or wrote very little of any consequence. And I found his monotone delivery used to wear me down well before it ade me laugh.

One of the unfunniest sketches I have ever seen in my life has to be that final one from the Secret Policeman's Ball where he is the head of a mystical cult awaiting what appears to be the Revelation. Laugh? I almost started!

'Derek and Clive': exactly which one of those two though that was a good idea? Tedious, obscene and uninspired.

The Secret Policeman's Ball sketch you mentioned was funny to me. It is a classic live-on-stage skit, simple props, clean language and wild imagination. To each his own I suppose.

here, here... This sketch is demonstrative of Cook coming back into the fold, after being discouraged by a series of scoops and disappointments... If I am let down by anyone in this performance, it is Rowan Atkinson, in his amusing, but distractingly.. O.T.T. doofus contribution...
In general, the scope and quality of performance in Secret Policeman is, in my opinion, exceptional. The Picture and Sound, that's another thread...

I got the impression that it was mainly about Cook prating on in his nasal monotone, saying very little that is actually funny.

I must admit - I'm not a Derek and Clive fan at all, though I don't find them as downright upsetting as I used to! When I was writing the Entry I was very aware of how hit and miss Peter's output was, and the extent to which random appearances on shows such as 'Parkinson' and the like that makes him so appealing to me. Accounts of his behaviour by contemporaries seem to describe an effortless brilliance that wasn't always there in staged productions - but all his contemporaries seem to regard him as the funniest of all.