THE GENESIS: FROM UNIVERSITY REVUES TO FLYING CIRCUS

         In the twentieth century, up to the Second World War, music-hall was the dominant form of comedy in England. It was the main form of entertainment for the working classes before broadcasting and cinema established themselves. During the Second World War, appeared a new generation of performers, known as the 'NAAFI' comedians (Navy, Army and Air Force Institute), who made their reputation on radio and television. They had their first experiences in organizations formed to entertain the troops. Those comedians spilt over to civilian life after the end of the war and, some of them such as Tony Hancock, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Graham Stark and Robert Moreton came to dominate comedy on radio and later television. In particular, Spike Milligan wrote and performed - with Secombe and Sellers - in the Goon Show, a radio comedy probably unsurpassed in inventiveness and craziness in this medium.

         The Goon Show had a major influence on the next generation of performers; the university comedians. Similarly, in 1960 a revue called Beyond the Fringe opened at the Edinburgh Festival and paved the way for what was to be referred to as the 'satire boom' of the early 1960's. Even more important : it broke the ground for a new wave of inventive and talented comedians including the Pythons, the university comedians. These comedians also had one thing in common ; education either at Oxford or Cambridge Universities.