Whatever I'd expected on entering the Museum of Comedy to see a tribute to Tommy Cooper, it wasn't tipsy pensioners heckling the main act. John Hewer is a tad short and pudgy to play the 6ft 4" comedy great who I first, and last, saw during a televised live performance from Her Majesty's Theatre, during which he collapsed (and later died) while I, and possibly millions of others, assumed it was a deliberate pratfall and couldn't work out what the joke was.
Hewer however channels Cooper's charm to have us laughing out loud at corny jokes you see coming a mile off and a repertoire of magic tricks that keep going wrong. There's an hilarious rendition of Blowing in the Wind and some great visual gags from spoon-jar-jar-spoon to the emergence of a long beam of wood, and then a ladder, from inside his magic cloak.
Those who remember Cooper - and the older audience clearly did, literally whooping with laughter, interjecting loudly, and generally misbehaving - will enjoy the opportunity to relive classic moments from Cooper's acts. Even the children there seemed to get some mileage from it - the jokes (remember the one about the dead cat?) are framed for infantile pleasure amongst infants too. Hewer performs with true affection, which is more than enough to carry us along, and is accompanied on the piano by Christopher Peters looking like an extra from a 1950s cabaret act. It's a fun couple of hours.
In conclusion: The intimate space seats around fifty and the venue is in itself interesting - a large room, with a bar, in the crypt of a beautiful church near the British Museum, with portraits of favourite comics and memorabilia to inform and entertain.
References
Museum of Comedy,
Tickets.
Museum of Comedy, The Undercroft, St George's Church, Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2SR.
No comments:
Post a Comment