The following piece is from an article from our club journal "The Cumberland Claptrap"
It was way back in 1971 when a magician rolled into town wearing a tattered suit, a cheery smile and a Fez, his name was Tommy Cooper, he was a big star and booked to appear at our club as a favour to our then president Alf Scroggins. Alf knew his mother from a dirty weekend spent at Pontins in Prestatyn in the fifties (that´s Tommy Cooper´s mother, not his own), and when we were let down by our advertised turn “Bulging” Bobby Braithewaite, Alf was straight on to the phone to her. Our Concert Chairman takes up the story.
“I´d heard of Tommy Cooper, - sort of, he was a name that cropped up quite often on the radio, - I think he was on “Workers Playtime” or summat from way back when, and I think he might have been on “Educating Archie” an all. What a carry on that was by the way, - a ventriloquist – on the bloody radio!! What the hell´s that all about? He wouldn´t have lasted 5 minutes in our club, I´ll tell you that. We had Rod Hull and Emu on one Christmas, and he was a top turn – you couldn´t see HIS lips move – a true professional, mind you the Emu never spoke come to think of it, so that might have made it a bit easier, I don´t know. Anyway, this Tommy Cooper bloke turns up, and gets all stroppy just because I asked him where his trilby was (the truth was that I thought we´d booked Tommy Trinder). He said he was a magician, so I thought fair enough, we´d not had one of them since we´d booked “Small Daniels” (Paul Daniels tribute show), and variety was the name of the game in those days. I remember we used to have this bloke and this weasel thing that he kept inside his truss, “Stan and his Stinking Stoat” was his name but Stan died and the Stoat struggled a bit after that.
So this Cooper fella comes shambling on stage wearing this red hat thing with black tassles on, and it was clear from the off that he hadn´t a clue what he was doing. Believe me, I know a decent turn when I see one and this bloke was all over the place. His first two tricks went wrong, but he just kept laughing in this deranged manor, and sort of clearing his throat all the time, maybe he wasn´t well I don´t know. The audience were laughing, but they weren´t laughing with him, they were laughing AT him and things went from bad to worse. He did this thing where he wore different hats and played different characters, but he kept getting mixed up, and not only that but he scowled at me every time I pointed out his mistake, I could see where he was going wrong, but then again I´ve been in the business a long time and know by instinct what makes an audience tick. He did that trick with the rings, but he couldn´t get that right neither, he kept dropping them and at one point he got one caught round his neck and seemed to be losing consciousness so I phoned an ambulance. Unfortunately he seemed to have full recovered by the time it arrived making me look a complete fool and they had to leave empty handed. To be honest it was one of the worst turns I´ve ever seen and couldn´t believe it when the audience screamed for more. They must have been drunk. After the show some of his showbiz friends turned up strutting about as if they owned the place, there was this blonde haired woman who I didn´t recognize (somebody thought it might have been Diana Doors, and somebody else thought it might have been Anne Aston from The Golden Shot) and Jimmy Tarbrush who´d just been on at the Palladium. (That´s the “Benidorm Palladium”).
I was later introduced to Roger De Coursey who I didn´t like either.
“I´d heard of Tommy Cooper, - sort of, he was a name that cropped up quite often on the radio, - I think he was on “Workers Playtime” or summat from way back when, and I think he might have been on “Educating Archie” an all. What a carry on that was by the way, - a ventriloquist – on the bloody radio!! What the hell´s that all about? He wouldn´t have lasted 5 minutes in our club, I´ll tell you that. We had Rod Hull and Emu on one Christmas, and he was a top turn – you couldn´t see HIS lips move – a true professional, mind you the Emu never spoke come to think of it, so that might have made it a bit easier, I don´t know. Anyway, this Tommy Cooper bloke turns up, and gets all stroppy just because I asked him where his trilby was (the truth was that I thought we´d booked Tommy Trinder). He said he was a magician, so I thought fair enough, we´d not had one of them since we´d booked “Small Daniels” (Paul Daniels tribute show), and variety was the name of the game in those days. I remember we used to have this bloke and this weasel thing that he kept inside his truss, “Stan and his Stinking Stoat” was his name but Stan died and the Stoat struggled a bit after that.
So this Cooper fella comes shambling on stage wearing this red hat thing with black tassles on, and it was clear from the off that he hadn´t a clue what he was doing. Believe me, I know a decent turn when I see one and this bloke was all over the place. His first two tricks went wrong, but he just kept laughing in this deranged manor, and sort of clearing his throat all the time, maybe he wasn´t well I don´t know. The audience were laughing, but they weren´t laughing with him, they were laughing AT him and things went from bad to worse. He did this thing where he wore different hats and played different characters, but he kept getting mixed up, and not only that but he scowled at me every time I pointed out his mistake, I could see where he was going wrong, but then again I´ve been in the business a long time and know by instinct what makes an audience tick. He did that trick with the rings, but he couldn´t get that right neither, he kept dropping them and at one point he got one caught round his neck and seemed to be losing consciousness so I phoned an ambulance. Unfortunately he seemed to have full recovered by the time it arrived making me look a complete fool and they had to leave empty handed. To be honest it was one of the worst turns I´ve ever seen and couldn´t believe it when the audience screamed for more. They must have been drunk. After the show some of his showbiz friends turned up strutting about as if they owned the place, there was this blonde haired woman who I didn´t recognize (somebody thought it might have been Diana Doors, and somebody else thought it might have been Anne Aston from The Golden Shot) and Jimmy Tarbrush who´d just been on at the Palladium. (That´s the “Benidorm Palladium”).
I was later introduced to Roger De Coursey who I didn´t like either.
