Let’s all drink to the death of the clowns

REVIEW: The Last Laugh – Malvern Theatres (Tuesday, April 28 to Saturday, May 2). Thursday and Saturday matinees.

Showtime! stars rating: *  *  *  *  *

FOR reasons presumably unconnected with the magical reach of algorithms, the video of a Liverpool comedian’s stage act popped up on my social media feed just hours before I left to see this show.

So. Here’s what appears to be a humanoid meerkat, hyper as hell and exploding like a dandelion clock with expletives, busily humiliating a hapless couple who have made the fatal error of buying a front row ticket.

All a bit of a mystery really, as I hadn’t previously been searching for this sort of stuff. It must have come looking for me. Worrying.

A few hours later, I found myself on another planet. The lost planet in fact. And what a contrast, for here we had comic cuts as they used to be. Yes, the real alternative comedy. It was actually funny.

This was a parallel universe, one in which the world of humour depended on consistently sharp writing, even sharper delivery, and the timing so strop-razored you were almost in danger of cutting yourself.

Yeah, yeah, I know. Here’s yet another old fogey yearning for a return to the days of working men’s club chicken-in-the-basket, Watney’s piddle bitter and Jim Davidson.

Ah, very sorry to disappoint, but I’ve never been keen on all three. But I nevertheless will eagerly confess to an eternal enthusiasm for the genius of Eric Morecambe, Tommy Cooper and Bob Monkhouse.

This is a truly brilliant play that connects from the moment that Damian Williams’ fabulously and authentically bewildered Cooper looms on to the stage in his underpants, wearing that trademark fez and accompanying gormless gaze.

Paul Hendy’s keenly observed story imagines the three comic heroes in a theatre dressing room, discussing the meaning of life, comedy and the ultimate death that will bring their final curtains crashing down with no chance of any encores.

Fuelled by the whisky bottle, the men talk about their lives, their hopes, insecurities, fears and private tragedies.

Hendy’s script is utterly electric, the sheer wattage of the dialogue amplified by the occasional flashing of the dressing room mirror lights, the gags ricochetting across the room, staccato bursts of pure energy that further confirm these men’s permanent place in the comedy firmament.

Williams perfectly personifies his tortured clown, every wounded expression instantly reminding us of the loveable buffoon who so memorably transformed the vulnerability of stage failure into an art form.

Britain’s Got Talent finalist Steve Royle has clearly taken a university degree course in the life of Eric Morecambe. He effortlessly and accurately recreates every mannerism, from the Lancashire accent with its rising and falling cadences, to the obsessive fiddling with his pipe and glasses. Endlessly watchable.

And so to Bob Monkhouse. Simon Cartwright delivers a stunningly observed portrayal with its quieter and more understated low-key approach to comedy, that while being in stark contrast to the style of Morecambe and Cooper, was nonetheless devastatingly effective.

These days, we would probably shrug and say comedians like this were ‘of their time’, a cliched near-sneer that goes nowhere near to doing them justice.

And yes, it’s perfectly true that they were selling a brand of humour that found echoes in a thousand now-empty factories, deserted offices and barrack rooms across the nation, in the days when Britain was a much happier place and good-natured workplace banter had not yet been made a criminal offence.

And crucially, very much a far cry from the present when the likes of Liverpool third raters turn what was once no more than a bit of leg-pulling into routine humiliation, rendering the comic tradition of true geniuses such as Morecambe, Cooper and Monkhouse into little more than spiteful graffiti daubed on a lavatory wall.

The Last Laugh is truly a masterpiece and should not be missed - a snapshot of a lost age of entertainment that has sadly died, along with its greatest exponents.