The BBC is to broadcast rarely heard recordings from Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

The biblical spoof The Dead Sea Tapes was recorded in 1963, but not released at the time. According to reports it was pulled over fears it would flout blasphemy laws

The clips will be played in a documentary about Cook made by Victor Lewis-Smith to be aired on BBC4 later this month. Peter Cook’s widow Lin has allowed Lewis-Smith unprecedented access to his private recordings, diaries, letters, photographs and much more.

"The reel-to-reel tape clearly hadn’t been played for 50 years, and when I threaded it onto my ancient Revox, the splicing tape that held the edits together fell apart, and lengths of audio tape spooled perilously onto the floor," writes Lewis Smith in the Radio Times of the Dead Sea Tapes. "That was scary, but thanks to my early BBC training, I was able to reassemble it, and realised I had discovered a missing link in the history of British comedy.Here were the “Dead Sea Tapes” – long believed lost, even by Peter – a semi-improvised collection of Bible sketches that Peter and Dudley intended to release in the US in 1964."

The documentary includes extracts from Peter’s home videos, as well as Lin’s first televised interview. Also included are rediscovered classic sketches from Not Only But Also, reconstructed in the edit suite after mute film clips were retrieved from Australia, and reunited with the original audio tracks. There is also unique footage from Peter’s memorial service, with contributions from Dudley Moore, Barry Humphries and David Frost. 

The Undiscovered Peter Cook, November 16, 10pm, BBC4.