Derek and Clive Get the Horn

Derek and Clive is for those who love that feeling you have at 3am when there is only half an inch left from the Tesco's scotch, and 8 fags left from your 100 regal. Basically, this is Pete and Dud on booze and hash, the performers Peter Cook and Dudley Moore reach a career and cultural high point as political correctness and taboo are dismissed by characters you probably would not like to encounter in real life though you can imagine the kind of individuals they are mocking; the kind of individuals who are running and ruining the world today. The essence of the performance is to simply combine the liberating effects of alcohol (which is consumed before and throughout the recording, concealed in coffee mugs) with their own vocal talents, creating an imaginary 'radio play' type world full of filthy perverts and leering homosexuals. The improvised feel of the film accommodates the many anarchic digressions and cutaway scenes, though largely the comedy is generated in improvised skits where the two assume characters (Usually Cook as the intellectually and physically dominant, and Moore as an inferior.) Cook, although in top form seems to be continuing some sort of personal attack on Moore, although this may simply be a key to outlining the chemistry between the two, which eventually moves from the stool in front of the mikes and over to the piano and drum kit, where Moore the piano virtuoso improvises a mock opera.

A little slow to begin with but working up to genius and a strong sense of fraternity between the performance and viewer,' Derek and Clive get the horn' will continue to astonish it's viewers for as long as a film with such normally unacceptable behaviour and dialogue remains as it is, a hidden gem, which when discovered, provides a magic tonic for both the intellect and the frustrations and contrivance of political correctness.