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Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing: The Definitive Biography of a Comedy Legend | 
 enlarge | Author: John Fisher
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £3.99
You Save: £4.00 (50%)
New (6) Used (12) from £1.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  13 reviews
Sales Rank: 3453
Media: Paperback
Pages: 464
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5.1 x 1.6
ISBN: 0007215118
Dewey Decimal Number: 791.092
EAN: 9780007215119
ASIN: 0007215118
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
mixed feelings June 13, 2008
Overlong, definitely, verbose, definitely, showing off, definitely, but within all that, a readable book (at least I found it so and I am very quick to give up on books!) and an honest appraisal of a wonderful man, who came to us to make us laugh, even through his ill health and problems with drink. His many problems with his agent were perhaps over detailed but the relationship was essential to Tommy's career. A few more anecdotes from other comics would have helped but overall I was glad I read it and I don't say that lightly, as anyone reading my reviews will know ... !
 ...Needs perseverance June 12, 2008
I'm embarassed to tell you how long it took me to finish this book. Suffice to say that I had to frequently overcome a compelling urge to give up on the whole thing because I found that I was not interested in the self-indulgent conjecture of the author.
Towards the end the occasional fact was allowed to creep in, which was nice considering this was why I bought the book. Unfortunately you have to witness the author disappearing up his own hypotheticals before you arrive there.
Just like this? April 10, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Two of the above critiques are so close to my own thoughts it's a bit spooky. the Author is a total 'guess who I know in showbiz' type author, but his fact finding is thorough to say the least. If I was a Cooper I would be a bit creeped out by the person who describes watching your mother through the shop window...
That, is truly spooky. Stalked her just like that. Window mother mother window...hurr hurr hurr.
The book is verbose (can a book be verbose?) but well worth reading. Just don't read it in the bath...You'll fall a sleep and drown. Just like that. I'll stop now.
Words! Words! Words! March 11, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have enjoyed John Fisher's books in the past but he has mainly dealt with his subjects in an incisive, almost surgical, manner getting to the heart of the subject very quickly and concisely. Boy, was this a long read! I felt as if I had spent every day of Tommy Cooper's life with him such was the immense detail. How much better this book could have been if it had been shortened by about 40% omitting a great amount of the interaction between TC and his agent. Most of that detail got in the way of the story and I found myself skimming through to get back to the meat. Enjoyable on the whole? Yes, to a point so long as you have the stamina.
Quite interesting February 29, 2008
I recently read this book hoping to get an insight into what Tommy was really like and found that for the most part he was exactly the same off stage as on, there were a few things I never knew like his relationship with his agent Miff Ferrie, he is mostly depicted as a control freak who kept Tommy tied to a contract but if you read between the lines he was actually responsible for keeping Tommy in work for all those years and often had to smooth things over when Tommy let clients down at various venues because of his alcoholism and bad health, there are quite a few descriptive sections that relay his act which are quite good to read but when I finished the book I didn't feel like I knew Tommy any better than I did before I started, it was more like a trip down memory lane.
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