Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing (40 page)

Tommy once surprised Bob Monkhouse by claiming that when it came to physical comedy and magic he had learned not to practise in front of a mirror. He maintained that by so doing you became so engrossed in yourself that you lost sight of the audience, whereas by working to an imaginary crowd, albeit a blank wall, you were constantly aware of the fact that ultimately you had to deliver across the footlights. Bob said, ‘I believe that was one of his secrets. I never saw him perform or do any kind of business where he wasn’t totally involved with reaching out to people. It was never a case of “Look at me. Look at me.” It was always “Here, this is for you.”’ His skill in handling an audience was never seen to greater effect than in his presentation of the evergreen juggling stunt with the eggs and the glasses. This had long been a standard item in conventional juggling acts, the cue for well deserved applause before the performer moved onto his next feat. Cooper enlarged the whole concept. It was no longer about a mere display of skill, everything about the interplay he could establish through that fourth wall that exists between performer and spectators. The climax to the routine when he knocks the tray from between four tumblers of water and four eggs precariously balanced on tubes set on the tray in such a way that the eggs fall into the glasses was always impressive, but in Cooper’s hands the destination was never as important as the teasing detours he took
en route
with those seated in the auditorium.

First the four eggs were ‘selected’ from a box of six: ‘Now, I’d like someone here at random – oh, Mr Random, would you point to any egg you like, sir. This one? Why this one? Why not that one? Alright.’ This is the one he breaks to show
that they are all genuine –‘so fresh that the hens haven’t missed them yet’– before setting up the intricate structure that he will soon capsize with one blow of his hand. Gradually he leads the audience into a state of comic apprehension, to which at this stage, trapped in their seats as they are, laughter can provide the only antidote: ‘What I do is go like that see and the idea of the trick is this – the tray goes over there (he points decisively) – and the eggs – huh, huh – they’re supposed to go into the glasses. I want to know why it hasn’t worked – just like that – boom – like that! And I’d like to point out that you are in direct line of fire!’ The way he plays on his own nervousness brilliantly increases the laughter as he approaches the resolution. However, he does have one word of advice: ‘I’ll give you a little tip. If they fly out, just catch them like that (he cups his hands together carefully), not like that (he claps his hands together), else it will go all over you like that (he uses his hands to mime the mess dribbling down his shirt front).’ The audience is encouraged to join in the count, not least so that he can catch them out at the last moment: ‘One – two – two and a half …’ When the climax arrived, he seldom failed, but when an egg did miss he always claimed, ‘That’s three more than normal!’ However many eggs ended up in the glasses, the routine always scored as a piece of audience involvement on a grand scale.

Whatever was going on within Cooper’s physiological make-up when it came to the playing of physical comedy, the fact that he could replicate complex physical business over a chasm of many years was only half of the achievement. It is equally extraordinary that as he did so he never left you in any doubt that what you were seeing performed was taking place for the very first time. One soon realizes that one is talking of something more than comedy, namely comic acting of a very high order. He might be older, droopier, even sadder
– possibly as a result of having done it a thousand times – but the immediacy somehow remained, in a way that Frankie Howerd never achieved in his struggle with the lady pianist who was hard of hearing –‘Poor soul. Don’t mock!’– or Tony Hancock with his intentionally hackneyed display of Hollywood idols of yesteryear: ‘And now here’s one for the teenagers. George Arliss!’

Hancock was too young to attempt an impersonation of William Gillette, the celebrated American actor–playwright of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Gillette helped to define the image of Sherlock Holmes with his portrayal of Conan Doyle’s character in the play he based on the stories, but arguably his greatest contribution to the theatre was the concept that he articulated concerning performance: ‘The Illusion of the First Time in Acting’. He wrote that each successive audience before which a scene is played ‘must feel – not think or reason about, but feel – that it is witnessing, not one of a thousand weary repetitions, but a life episode that is being lived just across the magic barrier of the footlights. That is to say, the whole must have that indescribable life-spirit or effect which produces the Illusion of the First Time.’ Directors struggle and strain to achieve this mystical quality from their casts. If it may be accepted as a criterion for success as an actor, then Cooper in his restricted way must be considered an accomplished actor indeed.

Many British variety comedians matured into successful straight actors, not least Max Wall, Jimmy Jewel and Nat Jackley. All had reached the Indian summer of their careers by the time they did so and were less compromised by the spontaneous connection that an earlier audience would have made with their comic achievements. Leaving aside for the moment whether Cooper might at a later age have been able to submerge himself into a straight part, the superficial idea of
our comic hero in a serious role is quite impracticable. However hard Cooper might have tried to tame his comic gestures and keep a straight face, distraction would have won the day. A routine that occasionally found its way into his act was a card trick that required him to play the part of a cockney spiv to justify the aces changing into pictures of ice-creams: in the cockney patter ‘Aces’ became ‘Ices’. For this he donned cap, scarf, clip-on walrus moustache, and an attempt at an accent: ‘All right, me old cock sparrer!’ The funniest line in the whole piece was his admission ‘You’d never know it was me.’ With Cooper the combined resources of every theatrical costumier in London could not have prevented such knowledge. He was beyond disguise.

A television sketch from 1975 in which he played all the parts in a one-man identity parade in an old-fashioned police station was built around this very premise. Cooper not surprisingly has the time of his life amid a flurry of false moustaches, giant sunglasses, and assorted headgear. Of course, the concept of confused identity underpinned his cod impressions, the
Hamlet
sketch, the famous ‘Hats’ routine, and not least the World War Two duologue where his costume is split between the German Kommandant on the one side and the British officer on the other. As the two soldiers wrestled with the uncertainties of monocle and clip-on half-moustache and the constant turning from one profile to the other, the two parts became hilariously out of sync until it slowly dawned upon the brigadier that he was speaking the part of the Nazi. They had been discussing escaped prisoners:

The real joke, of course, was that he could play neither, remaining unmistakably Tommy Cooper whatever the costume, the accent, or the facial appendage. And yet at another level, in order to make this very point, he was resorting to comic acting of considerable skill.

In real life Cooper was obsessed with identity. Bob Monk-house claimed that at the height of the poll tax demonstrations when West End streets were at a standstill he was cajoled by Cooper into travelling with him on the underground and no one appeared to take a bit of notice. But such occasions were the exception. He envied his friend and hero Arthur Askey who could whip off his spectacles, put on his hat and coat, and walk out of the theatre with the audience, disappearing into the crowd. For Tommy anonymity was usually a challenge of Sisyphean proportions. While there were times when he liked to be the centre of attention – he once expressed concern to magician, Ian Adair that he had been ignored at the hotel where he was staying in Blackpool because a wedding had taken centre stage that day – he also valued his privacy. Mary Kay recalls the summer season in Skegness where in order to walk around unnoticed he went to a wig-maker. Tommy imagined he was leaving the consultation a new man, complete with spectacles, a false moustache and his new hair. He had scarcely walked a few steps when a woman came up to him and asked, ‘Excuse me, Mr Cooper, may I have your autograph?’ The wig was never worn again. Dennis Kirkland would tell of bumping into him once on the concourse at Kings
Cross Station. Tommy was wearing a psychedelic Hawaiian shirt, shorts, white socks, pumps, sunglasses, and clutching a brown paper carrier bag. ‘What are you dressed like that for?’ asked the producer. He took off the glasses and said, ‘Oh, I didn’t want anyone to recognize me.’ Dennis swore he was being serious. As if the spectacles made a difference!

As an actor there was no way Cooper was born to be the next Alec Guinness, but, as Anthony Sher has pointed out, acting is less about disguise, more about revealing your soul. In this chapter alone we have observed his ability to portray pain, fear and guilt in the cause of laughter. The way in which he projected these emotions was no cardboard pretence. Drama teachers could have done worse than point their pupils in the direction of Cooper nursing the pain of his rapped knuckles in the cabinet routine. It was the simple detail rather than the obvious burlesque – like trapping a finger or thumb in a wayward prop, even clapping his hands too hard in a gesture of showmanship – that revealed the act as the minefield of disaster it was and neither Peter Sellers nor Alastair Sim, let alone Guinness, could have registered the emotion more tellingly. The reaction was often delayed – as when he smashed the jug stuck on his hand with a rolling pin – only to make the grimace all the more authentic. His wide-eyed stare with hand on heart acknowledged fear even when – as with his roar as Frankenstein – it was of his own making. ‘Frightened the life out of me!’ he’d say, stepping out of character, and he meant it. After he had finished pretending to strangle himself with one hand round the side of a flat or the edge of a curtain – an impressive optical illusion of its own – he didn’t have to say a word as giddy-eyed he regained his balance: it could have been the hand of the Boston Strangler. When his magical prowess let him down, the subtle insinuation of self-reproach as he ignored the world and took refuge in the nearest table
top said it all, as if the President of The Magic Circle was about to tap him on the shoulder and ask for his medal back.

Equally impressive was his ability to summon up real tears. Although he abjured sentiment and self-pity in his performance, he traded on the genuine emotion to send up pathos. Barry Cryer remembers there was no need for a make-up girl’s glycerine: ‘He could genuinely cry to order.’ A television sketch designed to make capital of the trait had Cooper bemoaning the fate of his lost budgerigar. It happens to be perched on his fez in full view of the audience throughout, but their laughter does not deter him from weeping buckets: ‘He was in that little cage – (sob) – and now he’s gone – (sob) – I bought him a little ladder so that he could go up and down like that – (sob) – and now he’s gone.’ It all gets too much and he pulls out a handkerchief to mop up the tears: ‘I’ll be alright. I’ll get over it.’ But still they come, until Cooper absentmindedly takes off the fez and discovers the object of his affection, which in an instant switch of feeling he proceeds to hit repeatedly. In another sketch he emerged tight-lipped and resolute from a casino having lost a million francs: no sooner was he outside than the water gates opened and he was bawling like a baby. Had they been anything less than realistic, none of these reactions would have been half as funny, bearing out the old adage about truth in comedy. Because none of it was happening to us, it was funny, but only because we believed implicitly that the pain, the fear, the guilt, the sadness
was
happening to him.

His television sketches are full of brilliant moments when he brings such skills into play: the registering of pain as he brings his hand down on the pile of bricks in the karate sketch; the conviction with which, in the restaurant sketch, he handles the wet rubber fish as if it were alive; the agony with which in another casino scene he eats the chips from the newspaper, too hot to hold and to eat. But if there were any doubt of his
skill in this area of expression one has only to look at the way in which he would physically embellish an otherwise straightforward monologue. Consider one of his favourite routines, the one centred upon the seaside town of Margate: