Paul Hendy’s transferring Edinburgh Fringe hit The Last Laugh imagines a backstage meeting between twentieth century comedy legends Tommy Cooper, Eric Morecambe and Bob Monkhouse. In case there’s any doubt, this is a nakedly nostalgic show aimed squarely at an older audience who actually remember its trio of protagonists being around.
But let’s not be overly cynical. If The Last Laugh does play out a lot like a tribute show, with the trio trading improbably exposition heavy banter, then Hendy brings a lot of thought and care to the set up.
For starters, there is more to the slightly gauche framing device than meets the eye. To be honest, it’s not hard to guess that this fanboy fantasy meeting isn’t all it seems – I won’t spell it out, but the ominous crackly lights and Cooper’s evident disorientation when he enters the room ought to tip you off to the fact that something is amiss. Okay, it’s mostly just an excuse for a fanboy fantasy meeting, but Hendry is a smart enough writer to make the set-up deeper than random fanfic.
He really is a fan though: not just of Cooper, Morecambe and Monkhouse, but of the generation of comedians that came before them, a few of whom we still remember (George Formby, Arthur Askey), more of whom we don’t (Rob Wilton, Sid Field). With Simon Cartwright’s suave but neurotic Monkhouse in place as a sort of walking joke encyclopaedia, the trio’s influences – and particularly those of bona fide geniuses Cooper (Damian Williams) and Morecambe (Bob Golding) – are explored about as deftly and forensically as you can reasonably expect from the unabashedly contrived set up.
Their frailties are dug into – Cooper’s depression, Morecambe’s dependence on Ernie Wise, Monkhouse’s tragedies and insecurities – but crucially Hendry’s script and direction does a very nice job of articulating why each of them was actually funny.
The performances are affectionate homages rather than full-on barnstormers: Hendy’s script ultimately presents the trio as humanised versions of their stage personas, not rounded human beings per se. But Williams is particularly good as Cooper – as much as anything else, his mix of brooding personal disquiet and virtuoso failed magician shtick is simply extremely hard to capture, and he does it very well indeed.
The Last Laugh is not an edgy play – but crucially its loving tribute to the gone-before-their-time old guard of British comedy has some edge. It could have been blandly affectionate, but there’s a keen intelligence and disquieting darkness behind the laughs.
