in large part by a favourable review by Kenneth Tynan. In 1962, the show transferred to the John Golden Theatre in New York, with its original cast. President John F. Kennedy attended a performance on 10 February 1963. The show continued in New York, with most of the original cast, until 1964, when Paxton Whitehead replaced Miller, while the London version continued with a different cast until 1966. Controversy The revue was widely considered to be ahead of its time, both in its unapologetic willingness to debunk figures of authority, and by virtue of its inherently surrealistic comedic vein. Humiliation of authority was something only previously delved into in The Goon Show and, arguably, Hancock's Half Hour, with such parliamentarians as Sir Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan coming under special scrutiny—although the BBC were predisposed to frown upon it. Macmillan—according to Cook—was not particularly fond of the slurred caricature and charade of senile forgetfulness (marked by a failure to pronounce 'Conservative Party' coherently) handed down on him in Cook's impersonation. Since Beyond the Fringe was not owned by the BBC, however, the quartet enjoyed relative carte blanche. The only protocol they were obliged to adhere to was that, by law, their scripts had to be sent to the Lord Chamberlain for approval prior to performance, a requirement abolished in 1968. Most specifically, its lampooning of the British war effort in a sketch titled "The Aftermyth of War" was scorned by some war veterans for its supposed insensitivity. One British visitor to the Broadway performance was said to have stood up and shouted 'rotters!' at a sketch he found distasteful, before apparently sitting down again and enjoying the remainder of the show, while another, at the first performance in Edinburgh, allegedly stood up and declared that the 'young bounders don't know the first thing about it!' and promptly left the auditorium. In response to these negative audience reactions, the Beyond the Fringe team said that they were not ridiculing the efforts of those involved in the war, but were challenging the subsequent media portrayal of them. Influence Beyond the Fringe was a forerunner to British television programmes That Was the Week That Was, At Last the 1948 Show, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. As with the established comedy revue, it was a series of satirical sketches and musical pieces using a minimal set, looking at events of the day and, with