The Last Laugh (Noel Coward Theatre, London and touring) 

Verdict: Comedy heaven 

Hallelujah! There really is a comedy heaven, and within it are the ghosts of Bob Monkhouse, Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper.

This imaginary paradise – first glimpsed at last year’s Edinburgh Festival – is set (where else) in a yellowing sock of a dressing room.

Just like that, man mountain Damian Williams appears as 6’4′ Cooper, tending a bottle of Johnnie Walker, vest straining to cover his tummy, trademark fez on his head. On his feet are cartoon chicken legs (‘make me look fowl’). He’s joined by Simon Cartwright as Monkhouse, looking like Alan Partridge after a session with Donald Trump’s make-up artist.

While these two rib each other in Paul Hendy’s hugely affectionate play, dark undertones are kept at bay by Bob Golding as mischief-maker Morecambe. Pipe jabbed between teeth and wearing those jiggling glᴀsses, he’s all squeaky giggles and playful teasing… although there’s no mercy for Des O’Connor (‘a hard man to ignore, but well worth the effort’).

The gags fly as they debate what makes top comedy. Monkhouse admits he was a mechanic, delivering tooled jokes. But Cooper and Morecambe had the ‘funny bones’.

All three were stalked by every stand-up’s nightmare: that tonight will be the night the audience stops laughing. Yet The Last Laugh isn’t maudlin, even when recalling the death of Monkhouse’s writing partner Denis Goodwin or Cooper’s death on stage.

Instead, it’s three immaculate impersonations giving the trio new life. Williams nails Cooper’s shambolic bᴀss, Golding unleashes Morecambe’s ‘speak laughing’, Cartwright masters Monkhouse’s lugubrious sighs.

The highlight is when all three come together for a tribute to George Formby and his ukulele classic With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock. Bliss.

There really is a comedy heaven, and within it are the ghosts of Bob Monkhouse, Eric Morecambe and Tommy Cooper

The gags fly as they debate what makes top comedy

The highlight is when all three come together for a tribute to George Formby and his ukulele classic With My Little Stick Of Blackpool Rock

 

Backstroke (Donmar Warehouse, London)

Verdict: Mother-daughter agonies 

Not a lot of laughs in Backstroke, a family drama starring Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie. Greig’s Bo is in a midlife crisis, compounded by having to cope with her dysfunctional mother Beth (Imrie), in a semi-autobiographical logjam written and directed by Anna Mackmin.

Anyone with an elderly parent may find it a buswoman’s holiday. But there is relief in Bo’s flashbacks, showing us her relationship with her hippy-dippy mum.

Bo tries to make peace while struggling with H๏τ flushes and her difficult adopted daughter. And Lez Brotherston’s set struggles to integrate shifting themes. His awkward solution is a hospital bed, behind an Aga, below a screen showing Bo’s daughter.

The comic narcissism of Imrie’s Beth gets old. But Greig finds warmth in Bo: a woman torn by love, anger and frustration.

Not a lot of laughs in Backstroke, a family drama starring Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie

Anyone with an elderly parent may find it a buswoman’s holiday

Greig’s Bo is in a midlife crisis, compounded by having to cope with her dysfunctional mother Beth (Imrie), in a semi-autobiographical logjam written and directed by Anna Mackmin

 

Otherland (Almeida, London)

Verdict: Trans tribulations

Written by Chris Bush (the talent behind the hit musical Standing At The Sky’s Edge), Otherland is about a man called Harry whose marriage to Jo falls apart when he decides to transition and become female.

It’s an interesting window on the tribulations of trans people by Bush, who is trans herself.

Harry feels out of place everywhere, and avoids going out or using loos — because it’s easier. So far, so tricky.

Yet she’s given unwavering support by a loving mother in America and by her ex-wife, who has troubles of her own (not wanting to have children …and then doing just that).

Ann Yee’s production intercuts these episodes with songs, including one with the dismal lyric ‘the world is f***ed, let me cling to you’.

Perhaps in a spirit of self-defence, Fizz Sinclair’s Harry is a bit of an automaton, who discovers what she calls the ‘violating and validating’ attention of men.

In the second half, she imagines oestrogen therapy making her feel like she’s being reborn as an amphibian ‘frogwoman’ into what seems like an 18th-century patriarchy.

Jade Anouka’s feisty Jo, meanwhile, finds herself dehumanised by the experience of NHS maternity care. ‘Who’d be a woman?’ she cries.

After this, and Backstroke (reviewed above) the time is surely ripe for more affirmative answers to that question.

The Last Laugh runs until March 22, then touring in the summer; Backstroke until April 12, and Otherland runs until March 15.

Otherland is about a man called Harry whose marriage to Jo falls apart when he decides to transition and become female

Ann Yee’s production intercuts these episodes with songs, including one with the dismal lyric ‘the world is f***ed, let me cling to you’

Harry feels out of place everywhere, and avoids going out or using loos — because it’s easier

Jade Anouka’s feisty Jo, meanwhile, finds herself dehumanised by the experience of NHS maternity care

In the second half, she imagines oestrogen therapy making her feel like she’s being reborn as an amphibian ‘frogwoman’ into what seems like an 18th-century patriarchy

 

The Score (Theatre Royal, Haymarket)

Verdict: Not enough Bach — or bite

By Georgina Brown 

The flat first half of Oliver Cotton’s play is a plodding preamble in which characters are introduced with a Wikipedia-like banality and a situation is set up.

Prayerful, peace-loving, if irascible Johann Sebastian has been summoned by the godless warmonger Frederick the Great, whose invasion of Bach’s beloved Leipzig has filled the city with bodies of rotting soldiers. (The echoes of Putin’s aggressions are impossible to ignore, but that is not the play’s point.)It is not until the sharper second half that a much-needed note of jeopardy is sounded. Bach (a shouty though beguiling Brian Cox in a wig borrowed from Mrs Tiggywinkle) finally arrives in Potsdam where his son, Carl, is a court composer with huge debts, unaware that the King intends to humiliate him.

The flat first half of Oliver Cotton’s play is a plodding preamble in which characters are introduced with a Wikipedia-like banality and a situation is set up

Trevor Nunn’s handsome production, Cox’s starry presence and some fine performances give deceptive heft and gloss to this uneven piece

For his own self-aggrandisement, the impenetrable King Frederick (an imposing Stephen Hagan in silver breeches), has set Bach a musical challenge he believes impossible.

The old man must improvise a three-part fugue from an ‘unfugue-able’ theme the king, himself a talented flautist, claims to have composed during a sleepless night. ‘I might give it a try,’ says a deliciously dry Bach.

At long last, we begin to, er, Cotton-on, to the play’s rather muffled theses. First, that musical genius is a God-given gift with the power to reveal the heart and soul.

And second, even more muted, that sons cannot evade the influence of their fathers, for good or bad.

Later, in his ingenious dissection of the king’s 20-note theme, Bach claims to hear a fragility and vulnerability this lawless man of action has chosen to silence.

Trevor Nunn’s handsome production, Cox’s starry presence and some fine performances give deceptive heft and gloss to this uneven piece.

If only it had more Bach, and more bite.