Miff wasted no time in writing to his old colleague recommending Tommy as one of several artists of possible interest. On 28 November Waldman was able to respond: ‘As you have probably gathered, there was hardly any need to remind us of Tommy Cooper, since we have now booked him for our big show on 23 December.’ He was referring to the gala opening of their new studios at Lime Grove. Tommy’s inclusion may have been prompted by the query scrawled on a memo to Waldman from Cecil McGivern, the Controller of Programmes, dated 13 November: ‘I understand that some of the governors have asked when they are going to see Tommy Cooper on television again!’ In the context of his original audition this represented true vindication. Miff managed to negotiate a special fee of twenty guineas. The show aired at 8.45 in the evening and featured Tommy as support to Dolores Gray, on the back of her triumph in Annie Get Your Gun, star ventriloquist Peter Brough with Archie Andrews, veteran droll Jimmy James, and assorted acrobats and ladder balancers.
Miff quickly followed up the situation with a meeting in Waldman’s office on 2 January. A letter dated 23 January 1951 suggests they were treating this extraordinary talent with caution. With his variety and cabaret bookings Tommy was available immediately only for Sunday shows. These carried an added prestige. Ronnie made clear that the BBC was concerned that it could do Cooper more harm than good by launching him into a show of his own at such a time. They did not want to risk his reputation by using him in the wrong way. He was too valuable for that. Eventually 1951 would provide Tommy with only two occasions to shine on the small screen. In February he appeared as a guest of the wise-cracking violin virtuoso, Vic Oliver and in September on a programme, the title of which left no one guessing: For the Children – Variety. However, by the end of the year the pendulum of interest had swung from wariness through indifference to enthusiasm. On 4 December Waldman wrote again to Miff stating unequivocally that the sooner he can let him know when Tommy Cooper is free for a series the better it will be for all concerned.
The shift was inevitably due to the change in Tommy’s theatrical fortunes. In July 1950 he had filled in as a replacement for Michael Bentine as the top comedy attraction in the Folies Bergère revue at the London Hippodrome. As a result he found himself in the running for a place in the second edition of the show. When Encore des Folies opened on 6 March 1951 the critic from the Daily Telegraph considered that the ensemble lacked inspiration and gave evidence of under-rehearsal, but conceded that ‘the best individual turn was provided by Tommy Cooper as a hopelessly incompetent magician. I have never before seen anybody do as little as Mr Cooper and yet be so terribly funny.’
A transcript of the patter for his spot survives, courtesy of the lingering practice of having to submit all spoken material for such a show to the Lord Chamberlain:
I would now like to show you fifteen hours of magic and by way of a change I shall do my first trick first. Now you’ve all seen that very famous trick of sawing a lady in half, so to heck with it. (Throws saw over shoulder) A red silk handkerchief. I will now produce a bowl of goldfish … what … no table? (Makes ‘bowl’ disappear under silk instead) Every magician carries a magic wand. I can do anything you like with this wand. You could tell me what to do with it, and I could do it. There is a white tip here and a white tip there. Now the reason for the white tips is to separate the ends from the centre … I get worse! The magic wand clings to my hand. It can’t fall down … (Turns hand) … because I have my finger there. Wake up fellows, I’m on.
I’ll do my encore while you’re still here. There is the bottle and here is the glass. The bottle will now change places with the glass. The tubes are empty. I feel very tired tonight. Been breathing all day! Bush! Bush! (Gesticulates with hands) Doesn’t mean anything, just looks good. Music, please. (A single note or two) That’s enough. And the bottle has changed places with the glass. (Failure) My next trick. This is called the Demon Wonder Box and was given to me by a very famous Chinese magician called Hung One. His brother was Hung Too. Box open … box empty. I now produce a blue silk handkerchief. I mean red. See the way I stand. Well, what if I am! I place the handkerchief in the box; say the magic words ‘Hocus Pocus, Fish Bones Choke Us.’ That’s my best joke. Okay! And the handkerchief disappears from the box and makes its way into my left pocket. Please don’t applaud. Just throw cigarettes. Place the handkerchief in the pocket so and produce it from the box. Go home, fellows. I’ll lock up. The red handkerchief will now change to blue. In this racket you have to be crazy, otherwise you go nuts.
Yes … we now come to the bottle and the glass again. Music please. That’s enough. (Failure again) This is the egg and this is the bag. You all know what an egg is and you know what a bag is. I will now make the egg vanish. Now I will make the egg come back. A child of three could do this trick. Wish he was here now! Where is the egg? (Places bag on table and audience hear egg ‘talk’) My next trick. I have fifty-two cards here. I will now make sure there are fifty-two. (Riffles edge of pack to ear) Sorry, fifty-three. Would you please think of a card? (To gentleman in audience) Two of Clubs? Correct! (Tosses card aside without showing face to front) I will now restore the two pieces of rope into one piece. I’m a liar. I expect you are wondering what this is. (Picks up and discards strange object) So am I. I can’t help laughing. I know what’s coming next. Here is the skull of the magician who gave me that trick. And here is the skull of the same magician when he was a boy. (Brings out miniature skull) Watch! Watch! (Produces large clock behind cloth) And now the bottle will change places with the glass. The bottle has changed places. (Exposes two bottles and two glasses) Oh, to heck with it! (Exit)
For an encore he came back to produce the bunch of flowers from the empty ‘vase or vayse’, flicking the switch on the plinth to produce the bouquet when everyone least expected it. The band played a chord and jubilantly Tommy declared, ‘I wrote that music myself!’ In his own typed version of the above the words I have put in italics have been crossed out. One presumes that he would sneak them in for a nightclub show or in provincial variety when the man with the blue pencil was not around. The camp reference is, of course, a straight steal from Max Miller’s act, where it never worried a soul. But innuendo was never Tommy’s forte and it is significant to see him – or the Lord Chamberlain on his behalf – refining his style at this early stage. There were also variations during the run. At a later date he would produce a large skeleton of a fish in lieu of the goldfish bowl that never came: ‘I’ll kill that cat!’
The bottle and glass subjected itself to much business, not obvious from the basic outline. For one of the transpositions he gained considerable mileage from the old spotlight gag, walking to the other side of the stage with the beam following him, running back in the dark to switch bottle and glass around, then returning to the spotlight which was now frantically looking for him. At a later date for the third stage he would shriek, ‘The bottle has now changed places with the glass’ without lifting the tubes, then continue, ‘The most difficult part of the trick is to make them go back again.’ He’d then go into lightning reveals beneath the tubes of bottle and glass, glass and bottle, bottle and glass, glass and bottle again, before disastrously showing two glasses at one time, then two bottles, then in quick succession leaving all four objects in view on the table and flinging the tubes aside. The speed for the finish was incredible, while the words on the page can give no impression of the overpowering presence and nervous energy that drove the act along. As The Magic Circular, the magazine of The Magic Circle, reported, ‘The skill with which he ruined his act was amazing.’ Val Andrews also makes the observation that at this early stage in his career when he was relatively unknown to audiences it was something of a surprise when his tricks began to misfire. When he became famous the comedy had to come from another direction: no sooner had he picked up a prop than he would then laugh in anticipation of the disaster