Derek and Clive are controversial cult characters created by double act Dudley Moore and Peter Cook respectively on the records Derek and Clive (Live), 1976; Derek and Clive Come Again, 1977 and Derek and Clive Ad Nauseam, 1978 and a film documentary, Derek and Clive Get the Horn, 1979. The characters are seen as more foul-mouthed extensions of their earlier characters Pete and Dud. Though the recordings were far too controversial for television or a mainstream audience, Derek and Clive bootleg recordings circulated, becoming famous for their unscripted dialogues, vulgar situations and copious use of profanity - especially the word "cunt".
Considered by many at the time as highly offensive, the comic sketches take the form of bizarre, drunken streams of consciousness led by Cook, with interjections from Moore. Memorable moments from the records include Clive claiming that the worst job he ever had was retrieving lobsters from Jayne Mansfield's bum, Derek claiming his worst job was cleaning up Winston Churchill's bogies (leading the pair to conclude that the Titanic was one such bogie) and Clive claiming that he was sexually aroused by the sight of a deceased Pope laying in state.
The characters, supposedly two lavatory attendants, first surfaced in the mid-seventies. Cook and Moore were touring Broadway with their revue show "Good Evening", a live version of their television series "Not Only. But Also." The relationship between the two had already become strained, as a result of Cook's increasing alcoholism. To reassure Moore, Cook hired out a recording studio in New York, where the two could simply relax and ad-lib. The resulting recording was padded out with live performances of old favorites (such as "Bo Duddley"), and began to circulate as Derek and Clive (Live).
Cook became bemused at the idea that they should not be making money from the increasing popularity of Derek and Clive, and suggested to Moore that the recording should be released officially. By this point, Moore had embarked on a successful film career and found the tapes embarrassing, until he too realised his contemporaries were fans.
A further two records were made. However, they became less like dialogues and more like vindictive attacks on the increasingly successful Moore by Cook, whose career had stalled somewhat in comparison.
These personal attacks culminated in an exasperated Moore eventually walking out of the Ad Nauseam sessions, effectively ending their comedy partnership which had begun nearly twenty years earlier. In one particularly hurtful attack, Cook rants at length about his irritation at his father dying of cancer. He was fully aware that Moore's father was at the time dying of cancer, and that Moore was having a particularly hard time coping with this. Nevertheless, Moore, also fuelled by large quantities of drink, not only happily joins in ad-libbing the song 'My Old Man's Got Cancer', but is reduced to hysterical laughter by Cook's lyrics.
The same love-hate relationship between them is evident in the Derek and Clive Get the Horn movie, during which Moore withstands brutally vindictive verbal tirades from Cook and walks out in anger, only to return, and have Cook reduce him to helpless laughter again only minutes later.
On Cook's death, little mention was made of the 'Derek and Clive' material, it being widely thought of as inferior to his other, well-loved, work. It was largely swept under the carpet, so to speak. However, despite the fact that Cook was clearly becoming tragically unravelled mentally, and was bitter and drunk most of the time, the records contain copious moments of quite brilliantly surreal comedy, and are not merely the exercises in blatant offensiveness that they were seen as at the time of their release. On the later records Moore was largely reduced to the role of a sounding board for Cook's drink-fuelled monologues, but the latter's improvisational comic skills were still disconcertingly sharp and intact.
