Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing (37 page)

In the second one hour special new heights of lunacy were
reached in a sketch when Tommy encountered Adolf Hitler on an inter-city train: ‘Do you know I never forget a face. That is a face, isn’t it?’ Frank Thornton played thespian Muswell Beamish, unbeknown to Tommy carrying his latest role into public places for his art: ‘I like to work my way into the roles I portray!’ Cooper’s look of lost bewilderment as he recognizes the monster over the top of his newspaper suggests that the true actor was seated opposite. For the first time we see our hero display a social conscience as he inveighs against the supposed Fuehrer with a rolled up newspaper, belatedly trying to instil in him a sense of remorse: ‘You’ve done some terrible, terrible things in your life.’ Tommy discovers that he has spent his time since the war not in South America, but in a way no one could have guessed: ‘For some years I was a bingo caller in Cleethorpes.’ In today’s tiresome atmosphere of political correctness, as affectionate an entertainer as Cooper might not be allowed to get away with the absurdity, although the concept was only two steps removed from his lop-sided caricature of the Nazi officer. In the years since we have been subjected to the tedium of
’Allo ’Allo!
, the edginess of Freddie Starr’s Adolf and the continued comic exhilaration of Mel Brooks’ evocation of the regime. And yet when Tommy hits Beamish over the head and declares, ‘That’s for Auntie Ethel! You frightened the life out of her in 1940,’ he perhaps – through Mortimer and Cooke – came closer to the common truth than many another more passably fashionable satire.

The strength of items like these and the confidence that exuded from the star in his stand-up spots combined to make these glossy productions – enhanced for the first time at Thames by the new dimension of colour – some of the most engaging of his career. Indeed, the comedy magic openings were now allowed to take up most of the first third of the three-part shows. Unfortunately, beneath the surface Cooper’s
life was not so happy. Within days of the first recording Philip Jones was asking what they should do about Tommy’s health, a euphemism that embraced his increasing dependence on alcohol alongside his worsening leg and bronchial conditions. Miff rather churlishly replied that it had been made quite clear to him by artist and broadcaster that, following the contretemps at LWT, he should have nothing to do with the shows, but he knew full well that he could not disassociate himself from his client’s general wellbeing and that the remaining years of their relationship would be devoted as much to this aspect of his life as to securing his income and organizing his diary.

The second tranche of four specials was placed in the experienced hands of Royston Mayoh, but was less successful. Mortimer and Cooke had made the decision not to continue, realizing that their future resided in situation comedy where they were able to copyright the characters and storylines. The success of shows like
Father Dear Father, Man About the
House
and
George and Mildred
suggests that they made the right move. Dick Hills, one half of the Sid Green and Dick Hills combination that first brought Morecambe and Wise to prominence, was invited to fill their considerable shoes. Sadly it was a job for more than one man and in retrospect, given the large teams of writers enjoyed by shows like
The Two
Ronnies, The Frost Report
and earlier Cooper strands, it is odd that the Thames executives did not act on the matter. The specials were bereft of truly memorable moments outside of Tommy’s stage sequences, with the flair for the absurd appearing to have been jettisoned for a more realistic approach. A regular item in which Tommy played a rather drab tramp reminiscing about his past exploits lacked the bravura one associates with the comic, while the interviews with Allan Cuthbertson based loosely on Tommy’s life threatened to take him back to the dark ages. Cuthbertson had been brought in
as an all-purpose straight man halfway through the first four shows. He would stay for the duration of the one hour specials, but throughout he betrayed an uneasiness that sat at odds with Tommy’s sunny, relaxed approach. However much the straight man traditionally represented the cultural opposite of the comedian, beneath the behavioural veneer a certain kinship has informed all the important double acts in history. At times Cuthbertson seemed just too severe in a caricature way, not helped by the residue of his supercilious colonel image from countless movies and television plays.

A segment in which Cooper, Cuthbertson and a male guest standing at lecterns in scholastic gowns read in a monotone lyrics of popular songs of the day as if they were declaiming an academic text owed a lot to the cliché that someone like Cooper could read the football results and make them funny. It emerged as the unfunny and unimaginative indulgence that it was. Unfortunately the star did not recognize the triteness of most of the material and continued to endorse Hills’s talent for a further series and frequent guest spots. Tommy found himself in the firing line of a bad press that panned him with barbs that were all the more painful because so hackneyed: ‘Absolute drivel’; ‘Insult to the intelligence’; ‘Unadulterated rubbish’. The shows mostly came to life when he was left to his own devices in a fantasy land of carnival costumes and accessories, the most successful of which involved an encounter between Dracula and the Bride of Frankenstein: the business he managed to extract from the fangs of the former, which he almost swallowed, was funnier than anything presented to him on the page.

Although Tommy could still turn on the magic of his personality, the shows were losing their sparkle almost in direct sympathy with his off-stage problems. They often appeared to lack the defining stamp of the star they were celebrating,
Cuthbertson being given a presence on screen that at times would have led a visitor from another culture to surmise that it was his show. Links that should have been the prerogative of Cooper himself were entrusted to his stilted tones. A sequence in one show with the enchanting Italian puppet creation, Topo Gigio should have culminated in Tommy interacting with the little mouse in the way that Ed Sullivan frequently did on American television. The role was delegated to Allan. Mayoh is honest about the difficulties that confronted him and others as producer. By now the recognized ‘banker’ that redeemed any show was perceived to be his stand-up sequence. To protect the preparation of this, Tommy would only be called for rehearsal when absolutely necessary. To give this and other key sequences maximum time before the live studio audience, anything that did not
need
to involve him was pre-recorded. That way Cooper never even met Topo Gigio.

Irrespective of the problems, Jones was keen to discuss 1975. Miff initially stalled, but did agree a guaranteed fee of
£
7,500.00 for an additional special, for Christmas, to be recorded in 1974. This automatically came with an offer of the same amount per show for a series to be taped in 1975. Miff asked his client whether in light of his increasing health problems that might be too many. In response Tommy queried whether the shows needed to be an hour in length. The ratings for the hour specials, transmitted as
The Tommy Cooper
Hour
, had been colossal, Tommy continuing to trounce
Coronation
Street, Crossroads
and
This Is Your Life
in the Jictar Top Ten. Unsurprisingly Thames decided it would be better to have Cooper on screen in shorter bursts than not at all. Iris Frederick came back with an offer of
£
2,000.00 a show for a series of six weekly programmes at the new length, emphasizing that this was ‘the most paid to any artist for a thirty minute programme’. Miff, alert to how much more Tommy could
now earn in cabaret over a similar period of commitment, asked for
£
4,000.00. They settled for
£
3,500.00.

The series, called simply
Cooper
, was recorded during the late summer and autumn for October/November transmission. Again produced by Mayoh, with Hills at the scriptwriting helm, it represented an uneasy mix between vintage stand-up Cooper and Seventies light entertainment at its shallowest. Every attempt was made to make the shows even less arduous for their star. Fashionable piano-playing chanteuse, Lynsey De Paul was tacked on as a resident guest, but did not appear on screen with Tommy once during the series. David Hamilton was given duties as master of ceremonies that again should have been invested in Cooper. In the interview segment that now came even closer to the original Stan Parkinson concept one longed for Cuthbertson, Bond, or any thespian to make up for the self-consciousness of Hamilton’s smug approach. The body language between the two is fascinating, Tommy on the left of screen openly facing Hamilton on the right, the latter’s sitting position painfully contorted between his upper half acknowledging Cooper and his lower half pointing out of the picture in the opposite direction. Most of their exchanges are based on the weak premise of Hamilton hijacking Tommy’s jokes or stories and completing them. There had been better uses for the exasperated Cooper look.

In consolation the series produced one classic Cooper sketch in which once again he played a waiter at a smart restaurant. This establishment, presided over by head waiter, Victor Spinetti, is unique in that it boasts a room behind the scenes where waiters can vent their frustration by smashing crockery out of the gaze of troublesome customers. As Tommy explains in an aside to the audience, ‘Out there is the nasty room where I have to be nice, and here is the nice room where I can be nasty.’ He was at the top of his form as he kept crossing the
line between fawning politeness towards the diners one second and his own maniacal rage the next. The display of slapstick chaos was worthy of Laurel and Hardy at their most deliciously destructive. As the mayhem spiralled out of control he became hopelessly confused as to which room he was in. As he says, ‘I ended up in both rooms – twice as nasty.’ According to Mary Kay, the sketch had some foundation in reality, Tommy having heard on a trip to New York of just such a restaurant that gave waiters the opportunity of laying into a fully-dressed dummy in the kitchens. A clapped-out ventriloquist’s doll with an orange fright wig is demolished in recognition of the fact as the sketch proceeds.

Conscious of the greater income Miff kept advising him he could earn in the clubs, of the dangers of over-exposure, and of his own physical deterioration – which will be discussed in greater detail in a subsequent chapter – Tommy, without wishing to close the door on subsequent years, held off from committing himself to a similar series in 1976, but eventually agreed to star in an hour special that was recorded in October of that year at London’s Casino Theatre. This was christened
Tommy Cooper’s Guest Night
, for which he received
£
7,500.00. Even allowing for the impetus provided by the inclusion of his hero Arthur Askey, the energy had gone out of his performance and the atmosphere that should have come as a bonus with the theatre setting was non-existent. But this did not prevent Thames wishing to pursue the idea of a series of six half-hours from a theatre location in the near future. However, before any commitment could be made, Tommy experienced a heart attack in Rome in April 1977. In the aftermath of the setback to his health, Thames offered a single one hour
Tommy Cooper Show
special to be recorded in studio in March 1978. As his condition improved, so he also committed himself to the earlier suggestion of the theatre-
based series, now christened
Cooper – Just Like That
, taped at the New London Theatre in July and August of the same year. Both projects were transmitted in the autumn. For the first he received a whopping
£
7,750.00, for the second an equally impressive
£
5,000.00 per half-hour show. In addition by now virtually all of his Thames product could be expected to attract considerable overseas residuals from Australia, New Zealand, Eire, Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and – for some reason – Swaziland!

The danger of any theatre-based series was that it would fall into the trap of laziness as far as material was concerned, and not merely from Tommy’s point of view. Script writer Dick Hills sounded Tommy a warning in a letter dated 20 June: ‘I get the impression that Thames are working on the principle that Tommy Cooper doesn’t need writers, and all that needs to be done is to jog his memory … I think it is important that the show is based on your act and that it is what the people really want to see. But that is not the same thing as relying on your prop room to supply material for six half-hours.’ Hills had a point, but he had done little himself to advance the cause of his profession in his service of the star. Dick was around for only two of the shows. George Martin and Eddie Bayliss were brought in for the duration. Yet another producer was taken on board and on the surface the choice could not have been more fortuitous. Peter Dulay, doyen of
Candid Camera
in this country, had started in show business as a stand-up comedy magician in the flagging days of the variety theatres. His father, Benson Dulay had been one of the last great magic troupers on the boards, with a comedy illusion act in which he too featured a hilarious version of the guillotine trick. With Peter at the helm Tommy was given a full-time magic consultant for the first time. With the backing of magical technician, John Palfreyman, Dulay fed Tommy’s confidence with
burlesque versions of some of the great set-pieces of theatrical magic, including filling the stage with livestock –‘And now I’m going to produce two thousand ducks in twenty seconds’ – and the kettle that poured any drink called for by a member of the audience. However the idea of teaming him for some of the time with a wacky girl assistant intent on upstaging him – played by comedy actress, Sheila Bernette – was against the grain of everything he had achieved as a solo performer and went nowhere fast. The shows ended with a meaningless sing-along featuring Cooper surrounded by a sub-Nolan Sisters act known as the Sisters Duane. This item alone would have been good reason for everyone at Thames connected with the show to be dismissed. But there
were
moments – like his portrayal of Romeo and Juliet in cinemascope, taking his time to stride across the stage as he had done in another context at Bournemouth Winter Gardens all those years previously: