ITVAnyone who watched television in the 1960s and 1970s will remember Tommy Cooper. Barely adapting his old stage act for the new medium, he performed magic, and his tricks went wrong. When he wasn’t doing that, he fired off endless one-liners. He was brilliant and, by and large, people loved him. In Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This (ITV, 21 April), a biographical drama by Simon Nye, the act was given plenty of screen time. But we also learned a great deal about this difficult, troubled man, and about the harsh world of comedy itself. There were three central characters in the play, and all were wonderfully portrayed. David Threlfall contrived to look and sound amazingly like Cooper: that long, battered face, switching from a kind of wary belligerence to manic cackling; the hu
24 April 2014, The Tablet
Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This
Television
Get Instant Access
Continue Reading
Register for free to read this article in full
Subscribe for unlimited access
From just £30 quarterly
Complete access to all Tablet website content including all premium content.
The full weekly edition in print and digital including our 179 years archive.
PDF version to view on iPad, iPhone or computer.
Already a subscriber? Login