Customer Reviews
mixed feelings - By: White Rose, 13 Jun 2008 
Overlong, definitely, verbose, definitely, showing off, definitely, but within all that, a readable book (at least I found it so & I am very quick to give up on books!) & an honest appraisal of a wonderful man, who came to us to make us laugh, even through his ill health & 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 & I don't say that lightly, as anyone reading my reviews will know ... !
...Needs perseverance - By: A. Wheldon, 12 Jun 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 interestedin 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? - By: A. L. Crutchley, 10 Apr 2008 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 knowin 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 itin the bath...You'll fall a sleep & drown. Just like that. I'll stop now.
Words! Words! Words! - By: Mr. Stephen D. Wassell, 11 Mar 2008 I have enjoyed John Fisher's booksin the past but he has mainly dealt with his subjectsin an incisive, almost surgical, manner getting to the heart of the subject very quickly & 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 & his agent. Most of that detail gotin the way of the story & 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 - By: Bodd, 29 Feb 2008 I recently read this book hoping to get an insight into what Tommy was really like & 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 Tommyin work for all those years & often had to smooth things over when Tommy let clients down at various venues because of his alcoholism & 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.
