May 12, 2010
To explain the appeal of Tommy Cooper to the uninitiated would be a difficult task. A tall, lumbering man, with slightly rubber facial features (his smile was not unlike that of the plasticine Wallace, from the eponymous Wallace & Gromit films), his stage “uniform” was a suit and a fez. His act was a combination of magic and joke telling. The magic was often done badly, albeit deliberately – but by “magic”, I mean the type that was impressive over forty years’ ago, when audiences were easier to please and noone had to make the Statue of Liberty disappear to get a round of applause: people were happy with a card trick or a dove appearing out of a handkerchief. The magic was always accompanied by Tommy’s rambling: he would start off by telling you what he was going to do, but he would constantly interrupt himself to tell jokes such as "I went to the doctor’s to get some sleeping tablets for my wife. He asked: ‘Why does she need them?’ I said, ‘Because she keeps waking up." Hard to believe, but that sort of thing used to have the audience eating out of the palm of Tommy's hand. Even when he approached the end of his career (and life – he died on stage) and his battle with alcoholism and depression were becoming apparent to his public (he often slurred his words and forgot his lines), people still loved him. These days, when an artist starts to show signs of human frailty, their erstwhile fans are often quick to turn and tear what is left to shreds. That never happened to Tommy; they adored him to the end.
Having said all that, I probably don’t need to explain Tommy's appeal, as A Night out with Tommy Cooper – Just Like That! is essentially a tribute show most likely to attract existing fans. In fact, when an elderly man in the foyer asked me if I was looking forward to seeing “the master”, I did wonder whether he seriously believed Tommy was still alive!
To work well, tribute shows have to be top notch. Fans often know the original material inside out and they set the bar high. Anything less would be to let their hero down – and that would never do. Clive Mantle did not let Tommy down. From the second he walked onto the stage, he was Tommy Cooper. Physically, he is very similar to him anyway, but on top of that he had perfected the voice and the mannerisms and even learnt some magic. The first half was a recreation of Tommy’s stage show; the second half began in a more poignant manner, with Tommy sat in the dressing room, drinking, smoking and struggling to get back on the stage. Get back he did - and his fans loved him for it, just as last night they loved Clive Mantle.
Having said all that, I probably don’t need to explain Tommy's appeal, as A Night out with Tommy Cooper – Just Like That! is essentially a tribute show most likely to attract existing fans. In fact, when an elderly man in the foyer asked me if I was looking forward to seeing “the master”, I did wonder whether he seriously believed Tommy was still alive!
To work well, tribute shows have to be top notch. Fans often know the original material inside out and they set the bar high. Anything less would be to let their hero down – and that would never do. Clive Mantle did not let Tommy down. From the second he walked onto the stage, he was Tommy Cooper. Physically, he is very similar to him anyway, but on top of that he had perfected the voice and the mannerisms and even learnt some magic. The first half was a recreation of Tommy’s stage show; the second half began in a more poignant manner, with Tommy sat in the dressing room, drinking, smoking and struggling to get back on the stage. Get back he did - and his fans loved him for it, just as last night they loved Clive Mantle.