Just like that? How Cooper’s every fluff was stage managed
The comic kept detailed planning under his hat, an archive of his props, jokes and notes reveals
HE WAS one of Britain’s best loved comics, famous for his apparently shambolic demeanour and his fez.
But Tommy Cooper’s stage act was in fact just that, a carefully constructed and meticulously rehearsed routine designed to give the impression of clumsiness, an archive of his props, drawings and documents has revealed.
Cooper claimed that his use of a fez on stage was an inspired accident, coming after he was forced to grab it from a passing waiter, having forgotten a crucial helmet prop while performing during the Second World War.
But the collection acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum shows there was little if anything spontaneous about the rest of his act.
It includes Cooper’s catalogue of jokes, filed “with the meticulousness of an archivist” in a small metal cabinet. The gags were arranged under topics ranging from bull fighting to wives, landladies to “remarks overheard on planes”.
Drafts of Cooper’s table plans from the 1970s – showing exactly where he would place his props, including his dice box and goldfish bowl, when on stage – are also among the papers.
The documents show he used to first draw where the props should be placed on a piece of card, before taking a picture of them laid out in real life so he could use it for reference.
The V&A said the discoveries shed light on the “previously unknown, scrupulously organised” working methods of the entertainer, who was best known for his absurdity and flustered appearance.
Simon Sladen, the senior curator of modern and contemporary performance, said Cooper used symbols and letters for his research.
“He would look through the encyclopaedias and anything he was interested in he would mark with a diagonal line,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “He would then cross that through once it had been typed on to a page and put in the ‘gag file’.”
“He would also use two letter codes – P and 1L. P stood for personal – jokes starting with ‘I went to the shop’, for example – and 1L stood for one-liners. He used this subdividing of material so he could quickly access material.”
Speaking about the table plans, Mr Sladen added: “In the drawings, you can see Cooper thinking carefully about which props should go where. Famously he would ‘accidentally’ knock things over, but it was all carefully planned.
“It is all part of the act. He was playing with expectations the whole time, that is what he was a master at.” Cooper began his career in the Army before going on to star in a number of television shows. He died at the age of 63, shortly after collapsing during a live broadcast from Her Majesty’s Theatre in London in April 1984.
The archive, purchased by the museum from a private collector, John Fisher, also includes details of the comedian’s early auditions at the BBC and personal correspondence.
Cooper’s daughter, Vicky, said her father would have been delighted to see his archive stand alongside those of great acts such as Ronnie Barker and Morecambe and Wise. “It is wonderful that the V&A has acquired the Tommy Cooper collection and that the public will get to see some of his material on display later this year,” she said.
“My dad would be very proud knowing he was now represented in the National Collection of Theatre and Performance, sitting alongside the likes of Ronnie Barker’s archive and costumes worn by Morecambe and Wise and Stan Laurel.” Fellow comedian Ken Dodd described his friend Tommy Cooper as “truly great and wondrous”. “He possessed and was possessed by the comic spirit,” he said. “He loved laughter and he loved to laugh.”
Other highlights from the collection include stage props such as Cooper’s “head twister” illusion, personal correspondence, posters, theatre programmes and merchandise.
Some of the posters have been cut in half in order for Cooper to write his “set lists” on the back. One hand-written note shows the order of tricks, starting with “flat P” and “watches on shirt”, and finishing with “handkerchief in the middle”.
Cooper invented several stories about the origin of his “failed” magic trick technique. One has it that he noticed the bad tricks got more laughs, while on another occasion Cooper said that he started doing it after he made mistakes in an audition but still got through to the next round.