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Our critic marvels as the genius of Tommy Cooper is recreated on stage in Oxford - with a few dark moments amid the slapstick.

By Richard Sanderson

The opening scene was spectacular: 50s swing music echoed from the speakers as the shimmering curtain changed from silver to gold, to reveal a glitzy set and six tap-dancing girls clad in suspenders and white tails.

Into this cabaret, Tommy Cooper appeared balancing a stack of china plates.

Tommy Cooper was loved by TV audiences

He wobbled down the steps, plates crashing at his feet until the final fall sent the rest of the plates spilling into the audience.

Several (paper) plates actually landed on front row heads, mine included.

And so began the laughter.

King of the one-liner, the bum joke that your dad mimics at Christmas and the magic trick that doesn’t go to plan, Cooper is a legend among comedians.

Jerome Flynn, as Cooper, has the magician's acute sense of timing.

His mannerisms allow you to believe that this is the real thing - that wide smile, the splay of the hands and the ability to laugh, on stage, at his own jokes.

In the first half the author, John Fisher, takes the audience from a rapid succession of one-liners and magical mishaps to Cooper’s dressing room, and the darker, autobiographical side of the comedian’s life.

Here the director, Simon Callow, slows the pace of the play as the comedian takes to smoking cheroots and drinking hard liquor while reflecting on his loves, insecurities and flaws.

At this point, to my mind, it feels too slow and although the audience is provoked to think about the sadness and pitfalls of an entertainer’s life, you long to be engaged and your spirits lifted.

The second half is devoted solely to Cooper’s stand-up performance.

Gag after gag and failed magic tricks provoke a unison of giggles and jaw-dropping suspense from the onlookers.

Behind me, amid the laughter, people comment on the props they love - the flower that grows with a tincture of water or the white gate with no purpose except to walk through. Flynn is superb throughout.

The crescendo of hilarity reaches its peak with a recital of New Year's Eve, a poem involving a soldier, a sailor, a fireman and a tramp, which Cooper acts out aided solely by hats.

On reflection, the low point in the play, that of Cooper’s off-stage more troubled life, helps to emphasise his comic genius.

This play is a tour de force. I was stunned.

If you are young, let a big man in a fez make you laugh; and if you are older, revisit some timeless entertainment of your youth.