by John Fisher
Tommy admitted many times that in those early days some audiences did not fully realize that his magic was supposed to go wrong: ‘I remember one dreadful week. Top of the bill was the singer, Steve Conway, and I was second spot on. I went all through my act and there was not a titter from the audience. Nobody made a sound except me. I was laughing on the outside but crying on the inside. That happened every night. People said, “There’s a big feller up on the stage and he should be working down the pit. Our little Charlie can do tricks better than him.” It got so bad I couldn’t go out in the daylight in case somebody who’d seen the show recognized me. Even my landlady turned against me. It really unnerved me.’ This could have happened at the Workington Opera House, the Barrow Coliseum, the Tonypandy Empire, the Maesteg New or one of a score of other less than glittering palaces of entertainment. But however depressing the venue, the experience was to prove invaluable and he soon developed the resilience to cope.
In November 1952, he had graduated to the Moss Empires circuit and was playing the dreaded Glasgow Empire, feared throughout the business as the ‘Comics’ Graveyard’. They didn’t care for him at the first house. By the second open warfare had been declared. With a nonchalance he could not have mustered three years earlier Tommy simply came down to the footlights and told them all to ‘fuck off’. He went straight to the dressing room, packed his bags and caught the first train back to London. Next morning, Cissie Williams, the highly respected booker for the Moss circuit, made her routine call to the theatre to see how the acts had fared the night before. The manager was forced to tell her that Cooper had returned to London. ‘What happened?’ she asked. He gave her the gist of the situation but was too embarrassed to use the exact words. Cissie Williams insisted: ‘He must have said something that upset them. He couldn’t have just walked off.’ The manager bit the bullet and told it to her straight. ‘Great,’ she replied, ‘it’s about time someone told those bastards to fuck off!’ One can hear every comic she ever consigned to failure on that stage cheering Tommy in unison whenever that story is told.
It is arguable that the nightclubs of the metropolis were no less difficult, not least because of the additional challenge of having to keep oneself and one’s audience awake at two o’clock in the morning. What passed as conventional stand up comedy was out of the question if one was going to grab the attention of the crowd above the clink of glasses, the chatter of waitresses, the come-on of high-class call girls. A heady brew of alcohol, sex, and violence hung in the air. It was a heavy drinking environment with many clubs encouraging the consumption of liquor by promoting what were known as ‘bottle parties’. Customers were served whole bottles of spirits which had a gauge fitted on the side. At the end of the night this showed how much had been consumed and their bill was worked out accordingly. The same bottle could also be kept in reserve for a customer on a future evening. To forestall violence among a partly gangster clientele some clubs, notoriously the Blue Lagoon in Carnaby Street, insisted that the bouncers on the door remove all guns on the way in.
He possibly came closest to his ‘Glasgow Empire’ experience in nightclub terms when he was playing the Bag of Nails in Kingly Street. Happily in that company he was more wisely restrained. The venue had a reputation for harbouring the real hard men of London. Most of the audience would have had a police record, or were coming close to acquiring one. One night no sooner had he stepped on stage than the heavy mob started to pelt him with bread rolls. His fez became an instant target. He was scared out of his mind, but had to say something and came back with a weak, ‘Stop that.’ As he described the occasion, ‘The place came over all strange. “Stop what?” shouted this geezer. I said, “Why, stop throwing all these bread rolls at me.” “And why should I stop?” he shouted back. “Well, because I haven’t got an ad lib for people throwing bread rolls at me.”’ The audience were immediately on his side. As he said, things were never quite so hard after that, but you were never completely home and dry.
One advantage of the smaller clubs was the intimacy they allowed the performer to develop with his or her audience. The great American comedienne, Fanny Brice once summed up her relationship with a supportive crowd as ‘much like sensing the presence of a friend in the dark’. The truly great British performers of the day like Max Miller and Gracie Fields had learned how to achieve this rapport however large the venue. Gracie herself referred to it as weaving a silver thread between herself and her audience. In time Tommy would join their company, although strangely, even at the height of his fame, he always refused to play a cabaret date in the vast Great Room of the Grosvenor House. For the moment though, every date played, every audience mood judged, every joke timed brought him a step closer to his own distinctive style, his unique tempo and the confidence required to drive him to the top.
Doubling clubs was not unusual, the Colony and the Astor being a frequent combination. One night in the spring of 1948 on his way between the Blue Lagoon and the Panama he was stopped in Regent Street by a policeman suspicious of someone walking through the West End of London with a couple of suitcases at such an ungainly hour. When he asked what he had in the cases, Tommy told him, ‘Magic!’ The officer was not satisfied and demanded he open them there and then. Slowly the sparkling spoils of his conjuror’s routine spilled out onto the pavement: ‘When he saw all the vases and rings sparkling under the lights he was still suspicious. He thought I was a burglar who had just done a job. At that moment, another copper came along and he happened to be an amateur conjuror, so to prove I was the real thing he made me perform one of the tricks. There I was in the middle of Regent Street at half past midnight doing “Glass, bottle. Bottle, glass.”’ Meanwhile Max Bygraves, with whom he was sharing the cabaret that week, was covering for him like crazy back at the Panama. By the time he walked on to do his act he appeared even more flustered than usual. He walked off shattered, turned to his friend and said, ‘Max, I’ve had a frustrating day. Let’s get pissed!’ According to Max, they did.
His apprenticeship took a special turn and the provincial trek a welcome break at the beginning of October 1949. His dream of a Windmill audition had been brought to reality by Miff and at the fifth attempt he joined the distinguished roll call of contemporaries who had jumped this hurdle ahead of him, including Jimmy Edwards, Harry Secombe, Alfred Marks, Michael Bentine, and Peter Sellers. Tommy stayed for six weeks at this legendary temple of static nudity in the seedy shadow of Eros, earning thirty pounds a week. Disreputable and innocent at once, the venue had a reputation as ‘The Comic’s Dunkirk’. No one pretended that the predominantly male audience came for the jokes; they came for the girls. Johnnie Gale, the theatre’s resident stage director, recalled how nervous the comic conjuror was: ‘Occasionally we wondered whether the nervousness was entirely genuine. One afternoon he dashed into the property room in a state of agitation, grabbed a pudding basin and put it on his head instead of a fez. Then he went to take his cue. The basin was whipped off him before he got very far, but the stage staff laughed – and that seemed to please him.’
In the first week he doubled with an appearance at The Magic Circle’s annual Festival of Magic at the Scala Theatre in Charlotte Street, enabling him to boast for evermore that in one week he had performed as many as fifty-two shows. At this time the Windmill (six days a week) had a ‘six shows a day’ policy, so how this was achieved may be something only The Magic Circle (six nightly shows and two matinées) can explain. Maybe there were some late night cabarets that did not get recorded properly, in which case he would have been moonlighting as far as Miff was concerned. The canny Scot was scrupulous in ensuring that everything that earned the merest penny was entered in the books. This included another diversion at the end of the year when he found himself spending Christmas at Morecambe playing an Ugly Sister in Cinderella. The comedy bandleader, Syd Seymour played ‘Buttons’; ‘Ermyntrude and Tinkle’ were played by Tommy and Cyril Andrews, of whom nothing seems to have been heard since; and specialities were
provided by Syd’s ‘Madhatters’, Cooke’s Pony Revue, Suzie the Cow, and Tommy Cooper – presumably divest of drag for a seven minute turn. Three weeks in Morecambe were followed by single weeks in Stockton and Oldham. It was the last time he wore a frock for an extended period on stage and began a love-hate relationship with pantomime that would ironically have an effect on his television career, as we shall discover.
After the Christmas season Tommy returned to the hit and miss pattern of the London cabaret circuit. The value of both the Windmill and the Scala engagements is that they had given him a chance to be seen in a conventional theatre by conventional theatre managements. On 22 May 1950 he was given his first bona fide West End theatre engagement by the producer, Cecil Landeau. It was the heyday of what was known as intimate revue, a now seemingly dated combination of whimsical musical numbers and ever-so-gently satirical sketches, with the opportunity for an act by a key solo performer here or there. The Cambridge Theatre was perhaps a little too large for the true intimacy the format required, but Landeau had had some success there the previous year with his production, Sauce Tartare. It featured a rota of names that were only just the right side of fashion, like Ronald Frankau, Renée Houston and Claude Hulbert. For his new show, Sauce Piquante he adopted a fresher approach involving many of the rising young Turks of the comedy establishment, including Norman Wisdom, Bob Monkhouse, Harry Locke and Tommy. All four shared a tiny dressing room. Bob recalled the huge man, whose props crowded the room, always trying to find the space to put on his shirt. One night Tommy handed Bob a dark stick of Leichner make-up and said, ‘Write “B – A – C – K” on my back. Bob complied and Tommy said, ‘That should end the confusion!’ He then put on his shirt and continued in the confidence that he now really did have one thing less to worry about. With this insight into his own private madness, Bob loved the man from that moment on. Norman’s recollections are much more basic: ‘His feet smelled like rotting fish! Whenever his shoes came off, I would swish a newspaper frantically around the dressing room and moan. “Phew – Tommy! Your feet!” “What’s wrong with them?” he’d ask. “Cor, didn’t anyone ever tell you about Lifebuoy soap?” “Well, at least they’ll keep the mosquitoes away,” he replied.’
The distinguishing feature of both Landeau shows is that they featured an ingénue from the chorus who would go on to achieve a stardom greater than all the comics combined. At no point did she appear on stage with Cooper, other than in the finale of the show, but her chic and his gaucheness would have made an irresistible combination. Her name was Audrey Hepburn. She was on fifteen pounds a week, Norman well on his way to being the highest paid attraction in British variety was on a hundred, and Tommy was on twenty-five. The show folded after seven weeks. Tommy had joined only halfway through the run to replace an act that had failed to make the grade. By the end Norman took a drop in salary to fifteen himself, but Miff made sure that Tommy made no sacrifices.
He also refused to take his eye off the ball presented by the main challenge on the horizon, television. The records show that Tommy owed his debut in the 1947 Christmas Eve variety show to Miff. If he ever had cause to be grateful to the Scot – not as yet his sole agent – it was for the opportunity this gave him to cock a snook at the audition panel that had sneered at him a few months before. A few spasmodic appearances followed in the early part of 1948. At twelve guineas a time a career in television alone was not going to keep the wolf from the door. A suggestion from Miff to pioneer producer, Richard Afton in September 1948 for Tommy to star in a show called Ferrie-Go-Round in which Tommy played the part of a ‘screwy steward’ on board ‘a ferryboat or pleasure steamer’ with guest acts as the passengers and Miff supplying the band proved a non-starter. There was no further interest from the medium until Afton gave him a spot in a music hall programme televised from the Poplar Civic Theatre on 13 May 1950. In August he broadcast from Alexandra Palace in a show called Regency Room for another pioneer, Michael Mills. In November Miff decided to take advantage of a relationship from his radio days. Ronnie Waldman had produced several shows featuring Miff and the Jackdauz in his early days as a radio producer, including Airs and Disgraces. In January 1950 he transferred from radio to a position as Senior Producer, Light Entertainment, having already achieved a genial presence on the screen himself in Puzzle Corner in 1948. By October 1950 he was already Acting Head of Light Entertainment, Television.
Miff wasted no time in writing to his old colleague recommending Tommy as one of several artists of possible interest. On 28 November Waldman was able to respond: ‘As you have probably gathered, there was hardly any need to remind us of Tommy Cooper, since we have now booked him for our big show on 23 December.’ He was referring to the gala opening of their new studios at Lime Grove. Tommy’s inclusion may have been prompted by the query scrawled on a memo to Waldman from Cecil McGivern, the Controller of Programmes, dated 13 November: ‘I understand that some of the governors have asked when they are going to see Tommy Cooper on television again!’ In the context of his original audition this represented true vindication. Miff managed to negotiate a special fee of twenty guineas. The show aired at 8.45 in the evening and featured Tommy as support to Dolores Gray, on the back of her triumph in Annie Get Your Gun, star ventriloquist Peter Brough with Archie Andrews, veteran droll Jimmy James, and assorted acrobats and ladder balancers.
Miff quickly followed up the situation with a meeting in Waldman’s office on 2 January. A letter dated 23 January 1951 suggests they were treating this extraordinary talent with caution. With his variety and cabaret bookings Tommy was available immediately only for Sunday shows. These carried an added prestige. Ronnie made clear that the BBC was concerned that it could do Cooper more harm than good by launching him into a show of his own at such a time. They did not want to risk his reputation by using him in the wrong way. He was too valuable for that. Eventually 1951 would provide Tommy with only two occasions to shine on the small screen. In February he appeared as a guest of the wise-cracking violin virtuoso, Vic Oliver and in September on a programme, the title of which left no one guessing: For the Children – Variety. However, by the end of the year the pendulum of interest had swung from wariness through indifference to enthusiasm. On 4 December Waldman wrote again to Miff stating unequivocally that the sooner he can let him know when Tommy Cooper is free for a series the better it will be for all concerned.
The shift was inevitably due to the change in Tommy’s theatrical fortunes. In July 1950 he had filled in as a replacement for Michael Bentine as the top comedy attraction in the Folies Bergère revue at the London Hippodrome. As a result he found himself in the running for a place in the second edition of the show. When Encore des Folies opened on 6 March 1951 the critic from the Daily Telegraph considered that the ensemble lacked inspiration and gave evidence of under-rehearsal, but conceded that ‘the best individual turn was provided by Tommy Cooper as a hopelessly incompetent magician. I have never before seen anybody do as little as Mr Cooper and yet be so terribly funny.’
A transcript of the patter for his spot survives, courtesy of the lingering practice of having to submit all spoken material for such a show to the Lord Chamberlain:
I would now like to show you fifteen hours of magic and by way of a change I shall do my first trick first. Now you’ve all seen that very famous trick of sawing a lady in half, so to heck with it. (Throws saw over shoulder) A red silk handkerchief. I will now produce a bowl of goldfish … what … no table? (Makes ‘bowl’ disappear under silk instead) Every magician carries a magic wand. I can do anything you like with this wand. You could tell me what to do with it, and I could do it. There is a white tip here and a white tip there. Now the reason for the white tips is to separate the ends from the centre … I get worse! The magic wand clings to my hand. It can’t fall down … (Turns hand) … because I have my finger there. Wake up fellows, I’m on.
I’ll do my encore while you’re still here. There is the bottle and here is the glass. The bottle will now
change places with the glass. The tubes are empty. I feel very tired tonight. Been breathing all day! Bush! Bush! (Gesticulates with hands) Doesn’t mean anything, just looks good. Music, please. (A single note or two) That’s enough. And the bottle has changed places with the glass. (Failure) My next trick. This is called the Demon Wonder Box and was given to me by a very famous Chinese magician called Hung One. His brother was Hung Too. Box open … box empty. I now produce a blue silk handkerchief. I mean red. See the way I stand. Well, what if I am! I place the handkerchief in the box; say the magic words ‘Hocus Pocus, Fish Bones Choke Us.’ That’s my best joke. Okay! And the handkerchief disappears from the box and makes its way into my left pocket. Please don’t applaud. Just throw cigarettes. Place the handkerchief in the pocket so and produce it from the box. Go home, fellows. I’ll lock up. The red handkerchief will now change to blue. In this racket you have to be crazy, otherwise you go nuts.
Yes … we now come to the bottle and the glass again. Music please. That’s enough. (Failure again) This is the egg and this is the bag. You all know what an egg is and you know what a bag is. I will now make the egg vanish. Now I will make the egg come back. A child of three could do this trick. Wish he was here now! Where is the egg? (Places bag on table and audience hear egg ‘talk’) My next trick. I have fifty-two cards here. I will now make sure there are fifty-two. (Riffles edge of pack to ear) Sorry, fifty-three. Would you please think of a card? (To gentleman in audience) Two of Clubs? Correct! (Tosses card aside without showing face to front) I will now restore the two pieces of rope into one piece. I’m a liar. I expect you are wondering what this is. (Picks up and discards strange object) So am I. I can’t help laughing. I know what’s coming next. Here is the skull of the magician who gave me that trick. And here is the skull of the same magician when he was a boy. (Brings out miniature skull) Watch! Watch! (Produces large clock behind cloth) And now the bottle will change places with the glass. The bottle has changed places. (Exposes two bottles and two glasses) Oh, to heck with it! (Exit)