Why Bother? was a series of five 10-minute long radio interviews for BBC Ra… Read Full Bio ↴Why Bother? was a series of five 10-minute long radio interviews for BBC Radio 3, between Chris Morris and Peter Cook's character Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling in 1994. The complete series has been released on a CD by the BBC. Cook received the sole writing credit whilst Morris also produced the series.

Morris played a variation on the abrasive interviewer character he had perfected on The Day Today, cleverly prompting Cook into some of his best work. The short pieces provide further insights into the Streeb-Greebling character that Cook had created for Not Only... But Also in 1965. Topics of conversation include Streeb-Greebling's work with eels, his role in the racial violence following the Rodney King trial, his military career and his habit of strangling his business partners. The listener learns that Streeb-Greebling was put in prison by his father at the age of four and hears of his next project: cloning from the fossilised remains of the infant Christ with the assistance of BMW, Honda and Sony.

Why Bother?
Peter Cook & Chris Morris Lyrics

We have lyrics for 'Why Bother?' by these artists:

Atheist Stop and look around at politics No, nothing's changed, it …
BOSS RUSH Waking up alone in this giant fucking bed Wishing to god…
Peter and the Test Tube Babies I am scared as I can be, to where I…
Rob Cantor Why bother It's gunna hurt me It's gunna kill when you deser…
Vincent the Band I know I should get next to you You got a…
Weezer I know I should get next to you You got a…
Weezer - Topic I know I should get next to you You got a…
Weezer [www.mymusicsharing.com] I know I should get next to you You've got a…

We have lyrics for these tracks by Chris Morris:

Forever Forever Doesn't seem so long with you I'm in love …
Get a Hold of Yourself What a whirlwind, she ain't a friend Sit in an…
Higher Out of the blue, there was you Speaking in a…
I Fell for U I took a step You took one closer I kissed…
Let Your Hair Down Let Your Hair Down And take it slow Let Your Hair Down And…
Let's Get Out of Here Let's Get Out Of Here Let's Get Out Of Here…
Paradise Everybody needs a little time away When you feel it’s time…

Sunshine in the Rain Today I let the darkness bring me down I promise…

The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos

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Comments from YouTube:

Nixer Doyle

4y↑44

Geniuses collide. People talk about Peter's appearance on Clive Anderson as a great return to form. This is an equally brilliant example of Peter returning to the kind of form that mere mortals can only dream of achieving.

As for Chris Morris, just brilliant.

Chris Elyr

3y↑12

I'd like to imagine Steve Coogan sitting in the corner, quietly taking notes. This is brilliant; I have never listened to Mr Cooks work outside of the Secret Policemans Ball, and the fact the interviewer is Christopher Morris as well is absolutely perfect.

Crimson Wolf

2y↑1

Watch the films "Bedazzled" (the original) and "The Wrong Box" for some absolutely hilarious Peter Cook (& Moore). Two of the funniest films ever made. In addition, their low budget intentionally bad version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is full of cornball toilet humor & ridiculous antics. Then there are the Derek and Clive recordings, delightfully highly inebriated stream-of-consciousness bantering that skewers everything possible. (Warning, highly offensive and not for the kids!!) Smoke 'em if ya got 'em!!!

Karen McGinley

3y↑11

Phenomenal. Eels, whales, Japan , hypocrisy, racism, crack pipes, homosexuality. Nobody but nobody except for Peter Cook could do this. It’s blinding comedy x

Joe

6y↑10

Absolutely incredible. Done so well. Not listened to it for years.

Michael Komnenos

3y↑8

I cannot stop listening to this hilarious recording. Magnificent Cook.

Stuart Leonard

4y↑10

Christ we need this sort of understanding about life now, brilliant stuff Mr. Cook.

Alex Lowe

6y↑26

Bless chris Morris for pushing cookie so hard - listening to a comic genius have to suddenly push his talent is amazing :)

Richard Eldred

2y↑4

Best improv I've ever heard, and I've trawled the internet

ProjectFlashlight612

6y↑52

Peter Cook's final masterpiece

Dave

4y↑3

And one of Morris's first

James Williams

4y↑1

Hear, hear!

stan stone

3y↑5

a true one off,brilliant, could listen to Peter Cook all day,tx for posting this.

Google Isgay

3y↑3

Peter's is the most gracious understanding of genius. There is never any getting around how much better Tanya Henning is, viewed under the ice.

Helen Searle

6y↑24

I love the way Chris Morris so matter-of-factly says what he means, as at 17:02 - "I hope you don't mind my holding you to it, because the next time we want to interview you you'll probably be dead."

Feeble Whip

2y↑9

"they weren't just long were they, they flexed backwards"
"she could walk both ways, yes"

Chaddamp

2y↑1

"A life in pieces" is very good too,I really miss his skill very much,I don't think that anyone can be so funny and silly...God Bless Peter xx

Dennis Benn

6y↑7

This is great! Thanks for putting it up!

Robin Gosnall

7y↑9

Excellent! Every episode I taped I lost when I threw out all my cassettes.

80s Renaissance

2y↑4

I can see why one would lead to the other....

Karen McGinley

3y↑7

I’m on the floor 😂 I listened to Derek and Clive on vinyl 40 years ago. This Peter Cook sketch lost me
But now the wonders of you tube I found it. And I’m on the floor and I can’t breathe 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Chelsea Poet

3y↑1

To really lose it with laughter like that is the best, isn't it? :)

blueqeloxxx

2y↑3

A true genius.

Alan Taylor

2y↑3

I've never laughed so much brilliant!!!

Retrosta

4y↑13

"I've had a long life and I've had a varied life, and I've had just about enough of it"

Helen Searle

3y↑4

Bloody, bloody eels.

Crimson Wolf

For those who might not already know: Watch the films "Bedazzled" (the original) and "The Wrong Box" for some absolutely hilarious Peter Cook (& Moore). Two of the funniest films ever made. In addition, their low budget intentionally bad version of "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is full of cornball toilet humor & ridiculous antics. Then there are the Derek and Clive recordings, delightfully highly inebriated stream-of-consciousness bantering that skewers everything possible. (Warning, highly offensive and not for the kids!!) Smoke 'em if ya got 'em!!!

Ras al Hanout

4y↑18

'I was trying to mediate...between the police and Rodders' 😂😂😂

James Williams

8y↑10

Together with Woody Allen's The Night Club Years, this has to be the funniest album ever made. 😁

Mark Woollon

Woody’s comedy never struck me. Poor compared to the real greats, his personal life aside.

Lee McAndrew

2y↑2

I love how he refers to Jesus and Paul Daniels in the same sentence.

DJ Promoter

6y↑20

Hadn't heard this for years and had shamefully forgotten about it. The Christ resurrection/miniature Christs piece is as funny as it's possible to get.

lalal278

3y↑5

Literally several of the best lines of comedy I've ever heard in that one: "Will he not be frightened by modern transport?" (think you can hear Cook almost break when he says that) "A voice - yes, maybe", "Just a rubber band, we could get some movement"

DJ Promoter

6y↑2

fantastic :-D

Helen Searle

6y↑4

"How will they eat, these micro-Christs?"
I don't know why that line gets me every time :)

Trevor Hale

3y↑6

This is my favourite weekly podcast.

FallNorth

2y↑4

"We were woken at dawn by the sound of hanging" ..
interesting idea for a new Alexa alarm clock sound feature.

Ian Harling

2y↑3

Just brilliant 👏 🤣🤣

Aicher 1000

3y↑8

“Who putting the money up for this?”

“Honda!”
I miss this man

Nixer Doyle

4y↑15

"Incredibly efficient the Japanese may be, but in a prisoner of war camp can you get a cold drink? The answer, I'm afraid, was no..."

Doug Tarnopol

8y↑12

Eoic upload. This is great! Cook really deserves the word genius. I believe Woody Allen said as much.

Scraps deSelby-Bowen

3y↑1

@Mark Woollon =Stardust Memories= gives the lie to your statement.

Mark Woollon

Not that Woody, whose made a career of embarrassing his idol Ingmar Bergman’s incredibly literate films, has much new to say about comedy. Decent stand-up but there’s so much better.

Cook was a genius, though, imho. Such a loss.

Doug Tarnopol

8y↑2

Epic, that is.

Wolshanze1944

5y↑3

“Holy shit just found this”
Cook and Morris the trifecta of greatness 👍

Alprazofam

To all those questioning the use of 'trifecta' in this comment, I believe (hope) that the OP was insinuating that this pairing of geniuses equates to (at the very least) three lessor mortals' potential efforts. It is a trifecta not by number, but quality. Two of the all time greatest proponents of profound surrealist satire to have graced this earth deserve to be considered as, at least, 1 and 1/2 of the the average performer in this field. They deserve, both as a pair and individually, to be considered a duo that warrant the status of a three person act. Maybe it was just a mistake on the part of the poster, but if so the happy accident is justified

mark000888

Trifecta?

Gabe Caine

TRIFECTA×3?

Chelsea Poet

3y↑1

Trifecta?

Retrosta

4y↑2

Trifecta?

3 More Replies...

honerah

2y↑2

So hilarious

Clyde Bear

3y↑5

The perfect interview....Chris Morris v Sir Arthur Street-Greebling.

Callum A

4y↑14

"if people died at work it was taken to be dumb insolence"

The Flaming Bridges

2y↑3

Oh this is brilliant. Thankyou

greg taylor

4y↑7

Fabulous! Thank you.

Lotus Eater

2y↑2

Funniest thing I’ve ever heard

Tomasina Covell

8y↑18

I wish he was around today, and in his 30's.

Tomasina Covell

@Dr Balbon Okay, good, so what aspect in general about him would be in question and by who or which segment of society?

Tomasina Covell

@Dr Balbon Okay, good, so what aspect in general about him would in question and by who or which segment of society?

Dr Balbon

@Tomasina Covell No, just an honest lad - no political affiliations...

Tomasina Covell

2y↑1

@Dr Balbon So you're "MAGA"?

Dr Balbon

2y↑1

He'd likely be cancelled 😞

6 More Replies...

voracious reader

2y↑2

Although he’s brilliant still, I just can’t make myself listen to the whole thing bc he sounds so winded and old.

Rustic Rod

4y↑14

"The fossilised remains of the INFANT Jesus Christ " 🤣

Lane Hewitt

4y↑3

Two Gods.

Daniel Fanshawe

2y↑3

‘Will he not be frightened by modern transport?’

Karen McGinley

3y↑4

He was practicing the resurrection.Get the fuck out of here.......I Can’t breathe x

angliase

7y↑8

"you embarked on a life of eel advised abandoned" !! lmao

Klaus Sperger

5y↑4

wasnt the clive james 4 characters last,or peters great performance in 'one foot in the algarve'
iether way 3 of the best things as good as ever.

Brian McCarthy

4y↑8

"It may even be noted that there has appeared especially in England a new variety of humour, more properly to be called Nonsense. Nonsense may be described as humour which has for the moment renounced all connection with wit. It is humour that abandons all attempt at intellectual justification; and does not merely jest at the incongruity of some accident or practical joke, as a by-product of real life, but extracts and enjoys it for its own sake."

"But this art of nonsense is a valuable contribution to culture; and it is very largely, or almost entirely, an English contribution. So cultivated and competent a foreign observer as M. Emile Cammaerts has remarked that it is so native as to be at first quite unmeaning to foreigners. This is perhaps the latest phase in the history of humour; but it will be well even in this case to preserve what is so essential a virtue of humour; the virtue of proportion. Humour, like wit, is related however indirectly, to truth and the eternal virtues; as it is the greatest incongruity of all to be serious about humour, so it is the worst sort of pomposity to be monotonously proud of humour; for it is itself the chief antidote to pride; and has been, ever since the time of the Book of Proverbs, the hammer of fools."

G. K. Chesterton's Essay, 'Humour,' 1928.

Enrique Pelenato

3y↑2

"Nonce.. sense"

Craig Ward

3y↑2

I'm off any minute. That's what I call a debate. It's wit against wit. Brill 🤣

Sodham G'morris

3y↑3

'...you haven't appeared on television because...a crackpipe can't be hidden?'

Chancer Productions

2y↑9

"I like to think I mowed down as many Whites as I did Blacks; and the Koreans did very badly out of the whole deal."

lol

Yorkie471 X

2y↑1

A staggeringly funny line XD

jean myers

4y↑3

I think Pete & Dud really loved each other though. I believe a grieving Dudley used to phone Peter just to hear his voice on voicemail.

Greta Gaul-Wood

Where did you hear this?
Rest in peace and silliness, Pete & Dud.

Google Isgay

3y↑2

You can hear his eyebrows rise in the pauses.

robert russell

3y↑5

Bloody bloody eels.

Gary Wright

4y↑4

Whose putting up the money for all this?
Honda......

Alasdair Baird

4y↑4

Casting himself

MrDachshund99

5y↑3

Came here from Fairplay by Pilote.

curioustwo3

5y↑8

"Tacit Consent"

b bbl

4y↑1

Please resurrect n take the p out of this government

Jack

2y↑1

He’s been practicing resurrecting his whole life.

Dizmation

3y↑3

Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold Gold

elijah pink

8y↑17

The 'interviewer' is that guy from 'Brass eye' isn't it ? Peter Cook is the catalyst for ALL of the real comic talent today.. All the brilliant contemporary comic's 'worth their salt' had a love affair with Peter's work at some point. He was a natural in a way Dudley could never be. Funny how that relationship ended up with Dudley being the one making it big in America. Making the films, getting the women and the money. I think ultimately it says more about Dud's need for recognition and ego and Peter's complete apathy towards celebrity, finding all that rather crass, more than anything to do with talent. Dudley knew that Peter was the real 'power-house in their relationship. The corner stone to their initial success. I just think that, even if part of him would have liked that he just couldn't stomach that scene. He just couldn't function in that world. I don't think it was in him. Being 'funny' in the contrived way Hollywood demands just seems fundamentally at odds with Peters character. Peter had an integrity, class and style that is at odds with that whole 'bag'. But it is Peters natural talent that shines through and, in the long run, it is Peter who will be remembered as the real genius in that duo In fact, in that whole era of comic talents ( Frost et al ) Genius, a word 'bandied' about, but in Peter's case, a word that can be used without pretention. He was a true genius, it just can not be denied and is not denied by his peers and 'fans'. A legend. Effortlessly cool. Effortlessly talented. A truly brilliant man. I rarely 'touch' the sycophantic. Where Peter is concerned I am willing to take that accusation. It is just how it is.

Ben Philips

2y↑1

Though in fairness Dudley's genius was as a musician, an Oxford organ scholar who could extemporise virtually any musical genre. Talent lies in many fields.

Loving Songs

2y↑1

No one disputes Cook's genius, but you seem almost as eager to rob Dudley of his brilliance as you do to laud Cook. While Cook enjoyed great recognition in England, it was Dudley who took on Hollywood. Cook didn't care, but Dudley felt he needed to prove himself as good as Cook and Jonathan Miller and Alan Bennet. Cook, Miller and Bennet were born into privilege while Dudley was born on the wrong side of the tracks and with a club foot. Plus, he was unusually short. He had a lot to overcome and he did it brilliantly. That took years of therapy, which he discusses with ease. Watch all the interviews of him posted here. No one is more likable or more charming. It's true that Cook was a natural, but Dudley, too, was quick with comedic lines. Cook needed Dudley and he knew it It was a most successful team, and they may have had some jealousy of one another, but also great admiration. And never forget Dudley's musical genius. If you haven't listened to the audios and videos here of Dudley's jazz performances, please don't deny yourself these pleasures. What a talent. Dudley came into this world with two strikes against him and left this world a victim of a horrible illness that robbed him of playing the piano. Fate could not have been crueler.

jean myers

4y↑2

elijah pink Dudley had a terrible end of life though. Peter had a very loving wife to be with him when he died. Both died much too young though but I suspect Peter’s death was greatly down to alcoholism & excessive smoking, whereas Dudley had a terrible disease.

aj h

4y↑2

almost wrote a paragraph

92RedRevolver

6y↑2

Jesus Christ, there aren't many comedians that can reduce Chris Morris to 'that guy off of Brass Eye'.

Peter Cook was a fucking genius, I wish Tuesday Weld hadn't stolen Dudley.

5 More Replies...

stevenman013

4y↑8

"Rodders"

Mojojojo Juniper

4y↑4

Teacosy

National Bread

4y↑4

bishops

Dangerous Kitchen

2y↑2

Honda

Beng Keng Ng

3y↑2

The public semicircle weekly record because crab ontogenically x-ray lest a gleaming dollar. waiting, towering delivery

Gary Mitchell

The character Sir Arthur is incredibly tedious. Good for a one-off five minute sketch, but no more.

Pip Lee

Terrible editing

Mark Ritchie

3y↑2

Love Peter Cook, used to like Christopher Morris but you realise how one dimensional he is when he's with someone talented. Chris Morris really has one gag he repeats endlessly - saying the opposite of what he should say or might usually be expected to say. I said something shocking, ha ha. That's it. You can replace "shocking" with "rude", "irreverent", "nonsensical" or what you like, but it's all basically the same joke.