Three comedians walk into a dressing room – no seriously – three comedians walk into a dressing room. This is the premise at the centre of Paul Hendy’s tragicomedy The Last Laugh – which he both wrote and directs.
And not just any comedians – these are giants of late 20th-century comedy – Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse. The show starts with laughter offstage – entirely appropriate as the show is about the nature of comedy : what makes us laugh and what doesn’t. Enter Tommy Cooper in his trademark fez, but this time in his underwear and sporting giant chicken feet. Damian Williams as Cooper gives us a masterclass in just how funny the gentle giant was, with his gravelly slightly nervous laugh and his fixed stare at the audience which just generates laughter in its own right.
There’s a knock at the door and enter writer, comedian and gameshow host Bob Monkhouse. The two admit that they did not know they were on the same bill in this unnamed theatre, where the dressing room mirror lights flicker and crackle supernaturally.
That’s one of the clues to the tragic trajectory of this comedy. After a few minutes of foreplay, a further knock at the door and in comes the comedy legend Eric Morecambe – here without his diminutive partner Ernie Wise. What follows is 80 minutes of some of the best of their comedy plus a quite detailed analysis of what makes a joke funny and what makes a comedian comedic.
Interestingly because Monkhouse – the most insecure of the trio – was actually a brilliant joke writer, he spends a lot of the show analysing jokes line by line and word by worth the annoyance of Cooper. The genius of Simon Cartwright’s rendition of Monkhouse is to make him endearing despite the fact that he is basically a boring person. The staging reflects this with Cooper and Morecambe being centre stage, and giving us bits of their acts, while Monkhouse sits to one side, an outsider, and observer and as he thinks the weakest link of the trio.
Bob Golding is immaculately Eric Morecambe from his wobbly glasses and silly laugh, to his song and dance: he is every inch Eric. Cartwright, with fake tan and little hand and finger gestures is absolutely Monkhouse, and Williams could not be better as the awkwardly brilliant Cooper. The latter indeed in his memorable mimicry of Cooper gets laughs from the audience just by standing there and looking at them.
I could give lots of spoilers about the trajectory of the story and its sad finale but I won’t, except to say my research showed that Cooper died in April 1984 and Morecambe six weeks later. The biggest clue to what the show is really about is in the title and the fact that the three are not really sharing a dressing room.
It’s a tour de force of acting with jokes galore – many written by Monkhouse – and I am sure that its West End run and UK tour will be greeted with gales of laughter – largely I guess by an audience whose age range is above 50.
This is five-star stuff and not to be missed.
The Last Laugh plays at The Theatre Royal Brighton until Saturday, February 16, tickets HERE
Photo by Danny Fitzpatrick
