Bob Golding (Eric Morecambe), Damian Williams (Tommy Cooper) and Simon Cartwright (Bob Monkhouse). Pictures: Pamela Raith

The Last Laugh

The Alexandra Theatre

****

Comedians are a strange breed, they become the talisman of generations, names that evoke an era, each age has its own king of comedy through music hall, then radio and the mass appeal of TV.

Paul Hendy's wonderful play The Last Laugh brings together three of the greats of the latter part of the last century, Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe, and Bob Monkhouse. They are still remembered with affection some half century on from their heyday.

Here we find them in a convincing single, dingy dressing room set (Lee Newby) in a fictional theatre before their final performance, three giants of comedy looking back at their lives, their comedy and even their mortality.

The trio are played by Damian Williams (Cooper), Bob Golding (Morecambe), and Simon Cartwright (Monkhouse) preparing for their act and questioning why or even if they were funny,  what was funny and, darker, their thoughts on mortality – the ultimate immortality to them, it seems, is simply being fondly remembered .

It gives us a broad picture of the trio. First we meet Cooper, just like that, who treats life as a joke, packed with puns. Cooper had that gift, sometimes a curse, that he could walk on a stage, or down a street saying or doing nothing and people would roll about laughing. He even had a act where he spent 10 minutes on a microphone backstage complaining he couldn’t find his way to the, empty, stage, with the audience in tears of laughter. Tears, as we were to find out in a Q&A second act, that Cooper shed one traumatic night slumped in a depressed state on the pavement with people gathered around roaring with laughter. 

His humour was simple, famed for originality, and his private life . . . unusual with a wife and mistress and a drink problem. He took life as it came and did it his way, carrying on smoking and drinking heavily despite advice it would kill him. Instinctively funny on stage he had a reputation for being moody . . . and drinking, off.

Morecambe unlike Cooper was part of a double act, teaming up with Ernie Wise in 1940 and after war service reuniting as the much loved pair which were to go on to fame and fortune. Morecambe was one of life's jokers, with silly walks, questioning looks and trademark glasses and could not see himself as a solo artist, relying heavily on Ernie. He was a perfectionist with each show rehearsed over and over for weeks.

Cooper and Morecambe appeared on the same bill on several occasions and while Morecambe admired the chaotic Cooper for his originality and absurdity and Cooper admired Morecambe's professionalism, the pair were never more than colleagues in the same business.

There is no record of Monkhouse ever being on the same bill as either. He never feels he achieved the same affection from the public as the other pair. He was never regarded as what is seen these days as a national treasure although his skill in word play, ad libs and one liners was legendary.

While Cooper just threw jokes out for a laugh and Morecambe rehearsed them until they could not go wrong, Monkhouse honed them, polished them, chiselled them, as he put it, to gain the maximum laughs with the minimum words. The ultimate perfectionist with his books meticulously recordng the thousands of jokes he had written.

While Cooper had as chaotic a private life as his stage act, and Morecambe, a more serious life offstage, with a more or less normal home life, Monkhouse had a home life no one would envy and seems to carry a permanent sadness.

Married twice, his eldest son Gary suffered severe cerebral palsy requiring residential care and died in 1992 aged 40, Monkhouse campaigning tirelessly for the disabled, incidentally, while his other son, Simon, 46, died of a heroin overdose in 2001. He had been estranged for 13 years.

As the play revealed he also had regrets about his writing and performing partner, Dennis Goodwin and their break up after 14 years in 1962. Goodwin was to commit suicide, aged 45, in 1975.

The private lives of all three are touched upon in the affectionate script. This is never an expose, a warts and all telling, but a warm-hearted celebration of comedy genius and a glimpse at the strain and constant pressure of not just wanting but needing the lifeblood of laughs.

The trio play their parts not as a sort of stars in their eyes karaoke fashion, but with real warmth and regard with Cartwright's suave Monkhouse particularly uncanny.

Cooper takes the permanent mickey out of everything, particularly Monkhouse, Morecambe is more friends with everyone while Monkhouse . . . well he analyses everything, which is just the way he is. He is also aware he is known more as a game show host by many people than a stand up, something which saddens him.

Cooper was to die, perhaps as he wanted, when his heart finally gave up on him on stage on live TV, Live from her Majesty's in April 1984, aged 63. Morecambe was to die a mere six weeks later, his heart losing its own particular battle in its third fight. He collapsed as he left the stage as the house tabs fell at a charity show at The Roses Theatre, Tewkesbury. He was 58.

Monkhouse was to outlast them all, dying of prostate cancer aged 75 in 2003.  From his diagnosis two years earlier he had campaigned relentlessly for prostate cancer awareness. 

How the three came to be in the same dressing room, what is the show, what is the theatre . . . that is never clear, at least until the end when our trio head off on stage for the last laugh . . . a strangely moving moment.

The play, which started life as a short film before taking to the stage, first at the Edinburgh Fringe, is a wonderful tribute to comedy greats, incorporating some of their best known gags, Andre Preview, for example, or the car selecting duck, or sex at 58 . . .  with a one act play and a second act Q&A with three actors who want to share their affection for and knowledge about their characters. Directed by writer Paul Hendy the result is wonderful theatre which will be just like that to 26-07-25.

Roger Clarke

22-07-25 

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