BBC releases Peter Cook tape

CHRIST PRACTISING resurrection by dropping dead regularly as a child and an ice dance extravaganza with Esther Williams swimming under the frozen surface are the more lucid topics covered by comedians Peter Cook and Chris Morris in Cook's last radio performance.

The conversations are released this week on tape by the BBC after being recorded in 1994 for a little-heard series on Radio 3 called Why Bother? The two were unscripted and had satirist Morris asking absurd questions of Cook, who played his oddball creation Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling.

The conversations were recorded after Cook and Morris were brought together by the comedy production company TalkBack. Their surreal interview wanders from Betty Grable's use of steroids to lengthen her legs and Cook's repeated attempts to begin ananecdote about bee-keeping.

Peter Cook, who was responsible for the satire boom in the early Sixties, died in 1995.Morris, who began his career as a prankster on local radio, gained notoriety with Brass Eye, his satire on the media.