The Establishment Club

T1115363442

---

Archive :: production:T1115363442, cabaret:S91490773, venue:V01613972150

---

Production details

Founded by Peter Cook in 1961, "The Establishment" was the Soho club from which the satire boom was launched. Featuring uncensored, live, stand-up comedy, it gave a platform to radical, political, and anarchic performers (everyone from Lenny Bruce to Barry Humphries and even Frankie Howerd), and was the inspiration for "That Was the Week That Was" (first broadcast in 1962), and Beyond The Fringe which ran for 18 months on Broadway. Fifty years on, comedy performers no longer have to fear censorship from the Lord Chamberlain, yet judging from the bland state of comedy on television today, although he may be gone, his malign spirit lives on. So what better time to relaunch the club that first challenged the tedium of the status quo?