Mike Nichols & Elaine May Examine Doctors

Mike Nichols & Elaine May Examine Doctors by Mike Nichols

There's a telling track on this 1962 reissue called "Nichols and May at Work." It's four unedited minutes of the improv duo cracking each other up to the point where they can barely speak. It's pretty funny even if you're not in on the joke--which is simply that producer Bud Drake suggested they do a bit about doctors. It must have been a good idea, though, because the other 10 tracks (culled from NBC Radio's Monitor show) find Nichols and May cracking everyone else up by giving surgeons ("A Little More Gauze"), psychiatrists ("Interrupted Hour"), and other quacks ("Bedside Manner") a good--and frequently racy--knock on the head. It's brief--clocking in at just over 34 minutes--and Mercury might have repackaged it with Improvisations to Music on one disc. --Michael Ruby