Read Online Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing by John Fisher - Free Book Online
Authors: John Fisher
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Juggler W. C. Fields, fiddler Jack Benny, aspirant thespian Frankie Howerd, frustrated pianist Les Dawson all accidentally discovered a talent for laughter when their original talents failed to make the grade.
The variety theatres of Southampton provided Tommy with his first appreciation of magic as performed before a proper audience on a large stage. The great illusionists of the day passed through the stage doors of the Hippodrome, the Palace, and the Grand. Horace Goldin, Chris Charlton, The Great Carmo, and Murray the Escapologist were all major names who in the late Thirties visited the town that proudly billed itself as ‘The Gateway to the Empire’. One particular performer attracted Tommy’s attention, as he later confided to ‘Wizard’ Edward Beal, a kindly small-time local entertainer who found time to run a bookshop next door to the business Tommy’s family ran in Southampton in the late Forties. In his book Particular Pleasures , which contains an appreciation of Cooper, J. B. Priestley queried, ‘I wonder if he is old enough to have seen, even as a young boy, the wildly original act ofthe American, Frank Van Hoven.’ Van Hoven, billed as ‘The American Dippy Mad Magician’ and one of the first of the true burlesque conjuring acts, died in 1929. While Tommy did not see the original, he did see the man who copied his act, namely Artemus. The week of 20 March 1939 saw the Southampton Palace Theatre featuring a bill headed by ‘Artemus and his Gang – Juggling with Water, Eggs, and Ice.’
Van Hoven’s other billing had been ‘The Man Who Made Ice Famous’, placing due emphasis on his main prop, namely a huge block of ice, the slippery peregrinations of which kept audiences in uproar as it slithered across the boards, causing freezing havoc among the three stooges enlisted to hold it and to keep it in a state of perpetual motion with the table and the goldfish bowl slopping full of water that they were supposed to hang on to at the same time. A borrowed handkerchief also came into it somewhere: only when the block of ice was in fragments, the bowl emptied of its contents, the table smashed to smithereens and the audience reduced to hysteria did Van Hoven get a chance to explain that he had been trying to pass it into the ice. Those who saw both considered Artemus mediocre in comparison with the original, but those who came to him fresh would rave enthusiastically. He did vary the routine, substituting the production of real eggs from a hat in lieu of the handkerchief business. The accidental omelette that materialized as eggs smashed on the wet and icy stage made the surface even more hilariously hazardous. In later years, as we shall discover, Tommy made great play of a burlesque magician sketch in which someone else played the wizard and he played a stooge from the audience. Eggs were the operative prop on this occasion. Tommy was too practical to have to bother about ice and goldfish bowls. But, as he reminisced to Ted Beal about the act, there was no doubt that Artemus had impressed him. Assuming he saw him in March 1939 and notbefore, the experience postdates the Hythe canteen episode, but must have further heightened his perception of the burlesque conjuror in entertainment terms. Ted also confided in Tommy his special philosophy: ‘The trouble with so many magicians is that they are purveyors of puzzles without the humour’; but by the late Forties, Tommy had already come to that conclusion for himself.
Meanwhile he was getting nowhere fast at the Power Boat Company. He was totally unsuitable for the task – ‘I can’t even knock a nail in straight!’ – but they couldn’t give him the sack because the premium had been paid: ‘The course I was on was one you had to pay for, so I got off with a warning and being sent home.’ Afraid to tell his parents, he spent his time cycling to nearby towns and villages looking for odd jobs. It is hard to think that the situation could have
The variety theatres of Southampton provided Tommy with his first appreciation of magic as performed before a proper audience on a large stage. The great illusionists of the day passed through the stage doors of the Hippodrome, the Palace, and the Grand. Horace Goldin, Chris Charlton, The Great Carmo, and Murray the Escapologist were all major names who in the late Thirties visited the town that proudly billed itself as ‘The Gateway to the Empire’. One particular performer attracted Tommy’s attention, as he later confided to ‘Wizard’ Edward Beal, a kindly small-time local entertainer who found time to run a bookshop next door to the business Tommy’s family ran in Southampton in the late Forties. In his book Particular Pleasures , which contains an appreciation of Cooper, J. B. Priestley queried, ‘I wonder if he is old enough to have seen, even as a young boy, the wildly original act ofthe American, Frank Van Hoven.’ Van Hoven, billed as ‘The American Dippy Mad Magician’ and one of the first of the true burlesque conjuring acts, died in 1929. While Tommy did not see the original, he did see the man who copied his act, namely Artemus. The week of 20 March 1939 saw the Southampton Palace Theatre featuring a bill headed by ‘Artemus and his Gang – Juggling with Water, Eggs, and Ice.’
Van Hoven’s other billing had been ‘The Man Who Made Ice Famous’, placing due emphasis on his main prop, namely a huge block of ice, the slippery peregrinations of which kept audiences in uproar as it slithered across the boards, causing freezing havoc among the three stooges enlisted to hold it and to keep it in a state of perpetual motion with the table and the goldfish bowl slopping full of water that they were supposed to hang on to at the same time. A borrowed handkerchief also came into it somewhere: only when the block of ice was in fragments, the bowl emptied of its contents, the table smashed to smithereens and the audience reduced to hysteria did Van Hoven get a chance to explain that he had been trying to pass it into the ice. Those who saw both considered Artemus mediocre in comparison with the original, but those who came to him fresh would rave enthusiastically. He did vary the routine, substituting the production of real eggs from a hat in lieu of the handkerchief business. The accidental omelette that materialized as eggs smashed on the wet and icy stage made the surface even more hilariously hazardous. In later years, as we shall discover, Tommy made great play of a burlesque magician sketch in which someone else played the wizard and he played a stooge from the audience. Eggs were the operative prop on this occasion. Tommy was too practical to have to bother about ice and goldfish bowls. But, as he reminisced to Ted Beal about the act, there was no doubt that Artemus had impressed him. Assuming he saw him in March 1939 and notbefore, the experience postdates the Hythe canteen episode, but must have further heightened his perception of the burlesque conjuror in entertainment terms. Ted also confided in Tommy his special philosophy: ‘The trouble with so many magicians is that they are purveyors of puzzles without the humour’; but by the late Forties, Tommy had already come to that conclusion for himself.
Meanwhile he was getting nowhere fast at the Power Boat Company. He was totally unsuitable for the task – ‘I can’t even knock a nail in straight!’ – but they couldn’t give him the sack because the premium had been paid: ‘The course I was on was one you had to pay for, so I got off with a warning and being sent home.’ Afraid to tell his parents, he spent his time cycling to nearby towns and villages looking for odd jobs. It is hard to think that the situation could have
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