Tommy Cooper died on stage in front of millions in 1984. Six years after he started writing it, Swansea’s Stefan Pejic is about to bring him back, on the stage of the Grand Theatre, for a musical that starts at the moment the fez fell.
Cooper the Musical runs at the Grand’s Arts Wing from Tuesday 15 September to Saturday 19 September, five evenings and a Saturday matinee, with every seat £15.
Pejic, the actor, comedian and magician Swansea audiences know from a decade of Grand pantos, wrote the show and plays Cooper. Rehearsals began this month.
It opens on 15 April 1984, the night Cooper collapsed during his act on ITV’s Live from Her Majesty’s, with the audience laughing because they thought it was part of the routine. He died before reaching hospital.
From there the show steps inside his head. His manager, Miff Ferrie, appears as a voice of conscience and strikes a deal with Tommy over how his life will be remembered.
Before the interval Tommy takes charge, with the surreal comedy, fast magic and chaos that made him one of Britain’s best-loved entertainers. After it, Ferrie tells the story Tommy cannot: the doubt, the drink, the failing health and the choices behind the fez.
“Tommy’s humour is still everywhere,” Pejic said. “His jokes live on in greetings cards, Christmas crackers and pantomimes. The musical celebrates everything audiences loved about Tommy Cooper, but it is also honest, human and deeply moving.”
The score and lyrics are by Dai Smith and Allyson Summerhayes, the director is Peter Richards, and the cast of twelve is entirely Welsh.
Producer Mark Cainen said the show tells “a complete human story”. “There is all the glorious chaos people associate with Tommy Cooper, but there is also warmth, ambition and vulnerability,” he said. “We want audiences to laugh, of course, but we also want them to understand the man behind the performance.”
The production says it has the backing of Cooper’s daughter Vicky, the Tommy Cooper Estate and the Grand Order of Water Rats, the showbusiness fraternity Cooper belonged to.
Cainen produces through Dare Tell, the Swansea community interest company behind Conviction and Swansea Boy.
A supporters’ evening in July sold out, giving an early audience the score, some of the cast and a first look at Pejic as Tommy. Swansea’s run is billed as the preview premiere, the show’s first outing in front of a paying audience.
Cooper, born in Caerphilly in 1921, was a Welsh entertainer whose catchphrase, “just like that”, and deliberately botched magic tricks made him a television fixture for three decades.
Tickets are on sale through the Grand Theatre at swanseagrand.co.uk.
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