The Tommy Cooper Hour (1973)

Clive James: Why I went for vintage comedy this Xmas

Clive James reviews last week's Christmas TV including Victoria Wood's Mid Life Christmas (BBC Two), Tommy Cooper's Christmas Special (Channel 5) and Morecambe and Wise (BBC Two).

Clive James, The Telegraph, 2nd January 2014

Ah, those were the days, when Christmas specials featured frilly-shirted Sacha Distel and Clodagh Rodgers in a hostess gown singing cheesy songs in front of skinny TV studio Christmas trees. In this 1973 special these musical interludes break up Tommy Cooper's comedy business of pratfalls and carefully choreographed ineptitude, and some terrible sketches - one involving a game of billiards played with a golf club feels like it goes on for ten years.

But there's a certain piquancy to all of this, as David Threlfall will shortly play Cooper in an ITV bio-drama. Cooper and his comedy have developed a patina of affectionate cool in the years since his death, so it's the perfect chance to see why he endures.

Alison Graham, Radio Times, 27th December 2013

Everybody likes Tommy Cooper. He has the huge dignity and innocence of some large London statue with a pigeon sitting impudently on its head and a workman scrubbing him in impertinent places with a stiff bristled brush.

Nancy Banks-Smith, The Guardian, 25th April 1974