The Last Laugh – Alhambra Bradford

Sad clown paradox is actually a syndrome where comedians with early life feelings of deprivation and isolation use an audience as a release so they can remove feelings of suppressed physical rage through getting laughs.

Paul Hendy’s ingenious idea to explore this paradox by imagining a meeting of seventies comedy titans Bob Monkhouse, Eric Morecombe and Tommy Cooper in a rundown dressing room as the lights flicker spookily. Trapped together, these troubled and driven funny men engage in a game of comedy one-upmanship as they slowly reveal the demons eating away at all three of them.

Along the way Hendy subtly analyses the eternal question of what is funny, and who better to do than three men who dominated primetime TV in very different ways. Cooper was a physical comic who just had to stand there to get a laugh much to the chagrin of the other two who had to work much harder for their laughter fix. Morecambe was the consummate funny man in a double act, and Monkhouse with his famous joke book was the comedians’ comedian.

There are plenty of laughs amongst the pathos as Hendy weaves in all their familiar mannerisms and some of their classic gags. There is a nod to the comedy greats whose photos adorn Lee Newby’s wonderfully seedy set as Morecambe does a George Formby number dragging the other two along with him. There’s a lovely metaphor for the subjective nature of comedy as all three do some work around a small white fence with varying degrees of mirth.

There is a glorious moment when Morecambe mentions playing the legendary Batley Variety Club that gets an affectionate laugh as many of this mature audience will have been regulars at that comedy mecca.

There is genuine chemistry between the three actors that mimics the mutual respect their characters would have had for anyone brave enough to step into the spotlight. The hulking Damian Williams bravely wanders the stage in enormous Y fronts as Cooper, sharing his lugubrious face and awkward physicality that earns him gales of laughter for not doing very much

Simon Cartwright has a tougher task as the perma-tanned Monkhouse who is much harder to like, but he slowly peels back the layers of the archetypal sad clown without overdoing his knowing looks. Richard Hodder as Morecambe nails the accent, and his nagging doubt that he might not have made it on his own, without quite capturing the restless energy that made him such a beloved national figure in millions of living rooms every Christmas.

Two of these men had fatal heart attacks in a theatre and Hendy’s moving and funny book leaves you much clearer why all three were prepared to sacrifice family and health in a quest for just one more laugh.

The Last Laugh is at Alhambra Bradford until Saturday 20th September. To book

https://www.bradford-theatres.co.uk/alhambra-theatre

Reviewer: Paul Clarke

Reviewed: 16th September 2025

North West End UK Rating: