14 – 18 July

Fashions in comedy come and go with each new generation, which is probably how it should be, given that what makes us laugh is rooted in everyday life and experience. Paul Hendy’s production, developed from his award-winning short film, pays homage to three stars of the past: Tommy Cooper, ‘the comedian’s comedian’, Eric Morecambe, one half of a massively popular duo, and Bob Monkouse, an often-underrated jokester-turned-game-show-host. Three very different people united in their driving desire to ‘make’em laugh’. Here, we see them backstage in a dressing room preparing for an unspecified performance.

The script is peppered with gags and observations that leaven the men’s musings about why they embraced the insecurity of such a profession, what they missed as fathers and partners, and the dangers of an unhealthy lifestyle, which ultimately led to the untimely heart attack deaths of Cooper (onstage) and Morecambe (in the wings). The irony that comedians refer to failing onstage as ‘dying’ is not lost on Hendy, whose brilliantly crafted script teeters constantly between comic highs and tragic lows.

Many of the gags are at the expense of lesser practitioners. Bernie Winters’ goofy lisping persona and Des O’Connor (‘a hard man to ignore, but well worth the effort’) come in for particular mockery. The nature of what constitutes comedy is distilled in the process. Bob Monkhouse (Simon Cartwright) emphasises that as long as you get to the laugh at the end, it doesn’t really matter how you got there. To illustrate this fact, each comic attempts to make the act of walking through a white gate funny. Monkhouse fails, Eric Morecambe (Steve Royle) raises a chuckle, but it is left to Tommy Cooper (Damian Williams) to subvert the entire exercise by walking around the gate and garnering the greatest applause. Cooper’s rambling, mistake-strewn style even raises laughs through silence (‘the comedian’s nemesis’) punctuated by heavy sighs. Monkhouse, the most reflective of the three describes their need to be funny as an addiction that evidently requires constant feeding.

There is music when Morecambe picks up a ukelele in tribute to George Formby and the three of them sing and cavort. The third song seems almost to transform the show into a musical manqué, but these brief interludes do not disturb the realism of the action unduly. However, elsewhere the introduction of tinkly piano as the mawkish underpinning of a changed mood seems unnecessary. These consummate actors (and the audience) could easily hold the moment of meaningful silence without any such non-diegetic assistance. Occasional and quite sudden booming crescendoes accompanied by a light change, provide an ominous reminder that the fun and joy do not last forever, not for anyone.

Minute but telling character details, their quirks, tics, chuckles, gestures, looks and intonation are faithfully reproduced by each actor: Morecambe’s vibrating glasses, shuffles and turns, Monkhouse’s curious touches to the face and looks to the audience, Cooper’s relaxed walk and the brief falsetto jumps in his speech, not only bring these long-dead men to convincing life, they infuse the entire performance with a touching affection and warmth.

That sentiment is also very much on display during the second-half Q and A session, fluently compered by Richard Hodder. Yet, the show’s darker theme of mortality is kept literally onstage throughout. The back wall of the dressing-room is decorated with pictures of largely forgotten past practitioners. There is one space left, which is filled as Cooper exits for his own final curtain.

★★★★☆. Peter Jordan, 15 July 2026

Photography credit: Pamela Raith Photography