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[Mark ScivierParticipant]

Full disclosure – I have always been a fan of Tommy Cooper. For me, it’s his sense of timing that is the key to his performance. Whether it’s the jokes or the magic, the timing is impeccable. While it comes across as old-fashioned to me now, his performance is entirely in keeping with his character. You have the feeling you really know him. Nothing seems out of place. Though there is only one direct interaction with a member of the audience, the interplay with the audience through their response, and his response to their response, is palpable.

Favourite moment – blindfolding the duck!

I’m not as familiar with Fred Kaps. I’ll be honest – he would not be a personal favourite of mine. I enjoy language, and his performance has no words. I found the music to be a distraction. I can’t tell whether the magic suits his character because I get no sense from the performance who he is. There appears to be no interaction with the audience at all. They might as well not be there. The salt pour goes on too long imho. I think it would be more entertaining, for example, if he could have the salt pouring from different places (from one hand, then the other, then his pocket, his shoe etc.!!)

Favourite moment – casual (and utterly convincing) toss of the coin into the box.

Interested to hear what everyone else thought! Mark.

[Eddie McCollKeymaster]

Hi Mark , thanks for your thoughts and thanks for using the forum . Its really good to look at different performing styles and watching the timing etc.

Eddie

[JackKeymaster]

Hey Mark, some interesting thoughts. I would be interested to see if you prefer Kaps in close up – I have posted some other videos of him performing in the “Character Studies” thread.

[Andrew MurphyParticipant]

Fred Kaps is rightly considered to be a giant in the world of magic.

That being said his performance in the main video is very much of its time and many magicians from the same generation would perform in a similar style. Perhaps it was viewed as the best way to showcase magic during the early days of television. I would assume that any magician performing in a similar style these days would very quickly receive the ‘red buzzer’ on shows like Britain’s Got Talent.

Kaps’ true genius can be seen in the ‘close-up’ Parkinson / Bro John Hamman videos. His performance style is smooth, he engages well with Michael Parkinson and the audience members, and his instructions, actions and intentions are very clear – everyone can ‘follow’ and understand what is happening. Bro Hamman was an excellent magician himself although he was also clearly fooled by Kaps’ effects.

Tommy Cooper was a ‘one-off’. The combination of his ungainly and awkward appearance coupled with his facial expressions and shambolic movement from one trick to another resulted in a unique performance style. However while the intention was to create the impression of chaos, all of this was carefully crafted and timed to perfection. Even although he scripted his shows very carefully, down almost to the last word, he did this all on the back of used envelopes (Tommy was famously rather careful with his money). In addition, his famous one-liners were not is own – he would buy corny joke-books by mail order from the US and incorporate them into his act.

I would recommend John Fisher’s biography of Tommy Cooper ‘Always Leave Them Laughing’.

Cheers

Andrew

[Eddie McCollKeymaster]

Thanks for your thoughts Andrew. A friend of mine was a close friend of Tommy Coopers, infact Cooper use some of his material on his TV shows.

 

Cheers

[JackKeymaster]

Thanks for the insights on Tommy there Andrew. I saw a documentary on him where someone from his family and his agent showed his table layout diagrams and told a story about how he went on stage once and the tables had been rearranged by someone looking for something and he completely lost track of his act. (I know this feeling when reaching for a prop and it not being there!)

I sadly have to agree that Kaps’ stage routine would likely receive a red buzzer from judges on TV because nothing is allowed to bubble up anymore – I like a gentle and slow build rather than rapid pace personally. And I perform in that style in my own written shows (of course on the rare occasion I do walk around I perform completely differently). I think you can certainly perform in a much gentler and softer style in the right context – a good example of this would be Mat Ricardo’s hat and cane routine which is just a man doing hat and cane tricks with a tiny bit of juggling at the end – its 4 minutes and captivates an audience – yet its very slow to build, not overly complex and styled very heavily on classic vaudeville.

The reason these two were showcased together this week was because of their huge contrasting styles and yet they would often be booked to the same venues. It all comes down to how you present your character as to what your audience will enjoy. The same audience can enjoy high energy, laughs and shocks from one, and subtle and gentle elegance from another.

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