TV review: The Untold Tommy Cooper

You didn't need to be a Tommy Cooper fan to find this take on his life compelling.

The nostalgic can wallow in plenty of retro-fare this Christmas, from old Morecambe and Wise specials, by way of Tommy Cooper repeats and this splendid profile of the poker-faced comedian who was still selling vacuum cleaners at the age of 38 when, in 1967, he had one last throw of the dice and entered Opportunity Knocks. Dawson's deadpan humour is appreciated here by John Cleese, Robert Webb ("it's quite easy to play the piano badly and not be funny") and Russell Kane ("some of us younger people did muddle him up with John Prescott"). Touchingly, Dawson stopped cracking mother-in-law jokes when his wife's mother died.

Comedian Tommy Cooper was regularly credited with the ability to be funny without actually having to do anything. At 6'4!, with messy hair and a red fez on his head, he certainly looked the part. Using previously unseen footage, plus details from the diaries of Cooper's manager Miff Ferrie, this documentary provides a portrait of the troubled comedy giant, who died in 1984. Contributions come from Johnny Vegas and Damien Hirst.

Russ Abbot interview: toasting the magic Tommy Cooper

Russ Abbot tells Michael Deacon about playing the irrepressible comic Tommy Cooper for new Radio 3 drama, Glass Chair Chair Glass.

Coming up: Glass Chair Chair Glass

This Sunday on Radio 3, Russ Abbot stars in a play that imagines a day when Tommy Cooper met absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco.

Glass Chair Chair Glass

This Sunday on Radio 3, Russ Abbot stars in a play that imagines a day when Tommy Cooper met absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco. Writer Annie Caulfield tells us how this came about...

Russ Abbot to play Tommy Cooper in new BBC radio drama

Russ Abbot is to play Tommy Cooper in a BBC drama that imagines what would have happened if the comedian and magician had met absurdist playwright Eugene Ionesco.

Ian D Montfort is a Derren Brown-Tommy Cooper hybrid

Writer, actor and stand-up comedian Tom Binns mixes Tommy Cooper and Derren Brown in his new Edinburgh Fringe show.

Watching this series's parade of classic comedy clips, chosen by comedians of today, confirms the theory that some people just have funny bones. It wouldn't matter if Tommy Cooper were clipping his toenails or performing the elaborately shambolic glass bottle trick from 1974 that is replayed here tonight: the fez-wearing comedian induces guffaws just because of who he is. Similarly, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore go wildly off-script in their "Pete and Dud" sketch in the art gallery and start giggling, but they're naturally funny together, as Phill Jupitus and Rhod Gilbert attest here. Funny comes in many packages, and while the American stand-up Joan Rivers, chosen by Graham Norton and Jo Brand as a favourite, is well-known for her shock tactics, her outrageous quips about growing old on The Graham Norton Show appeared to take even Norton aback at the time. Other treats featured are the University Challenge scene from The Young Ones in 1984, co-starring Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry, and the bit in the Monty Python film Life of Brian in which Graham Chapman's Brian Cohen exhorts his followers to think for themselves. It may be a clip show and most of the clips are more than familiar, but it surely contains more laughs per minute than any of the newer comedies on television tonight.