麻豆约拍

What might have happened if magician, Tommy Cooper had met absurdist playwright, Eugene Ionesco in Paris in 1975?

Imaginary comedy starring Russ Abbot as Tommy Cooper, Harriett Walter as Gwen Cooper, Allan Corduner as Eugene Ionesco, Emily Bruni as the Actress and Hugh Ross as Miff Ferrie.

It could have happened. In the throes of a paranoia laced drunken spree, Tommy Cooper may not be in the best place to enter Eugene Ionesco's world, where events have the logic of a dream, where people don't tell the truth or even know what it is and where mysterious and brutal threats are always close. Survivor of Nazis and Stalinists, in permanent exile from his native Romania, Ionesco was always drawn to anarchic comedy as the only way to express the world. His plays generate emotion rather than obvious meaning because he felt life was too unstable to mean very much. Ionesco and Tommy Cooper's world views collide with surprising results, concluding that laughter is often the only real revolution we have left.

Annie Caulfield's play waltzes us through thoughts about the state of the world, how to make a salt pot disappear, and how to travel on imaginary motorbikes, as Cooper and Ionesco ask the question; Is comedy just business, escapism or is it for the soul?

Directed by Marilyn Imrie and produced by Gordon Kennedy for Absolutely Productions.

First broadcast on 麻豆约拍 Radio 3 in 2011.