Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing, by John Fisher

The clown prince of illusion, Tommy Cooper, remains unfathomable

Tommy Cooper's sudden death was a catastrophe for his friends and family, but it did his professional reputation no harm at all. He bowed out in front of millions, during a live television transmission from a West End theatre, cementing the iconic status he still enjoys.

Thankfully, Cooper's final bow wasn't the only newsworthy thing about him. Author and television producer (and award-winning magician) John Fisher has written a meticulous study of this enigmatic Guardsman-turned-clown. He produced several of Cooper's television shows, and it's unlikely that there will be another biography as well informed as this. "His stage persona was virtually indistinguishable from his offstage presence," says Fisher, but Cooper's persona was so bizarre that this synergy makes him even more intriguing.

Fisher says that Cooper was not a complicated man, but he comes across as rather odd. Despite his soldierly bonhomie, his act was curiously abstract. His humour was a mask, revealing little of himself. Only after he died did his wife learn about his long-term mistress. He was notoriously tight-fisted, yet his childlike fun seemed so altruistic. On stage, he was an amiable hybrid of naughty toddler and bewildered giant.

Cooper was an accomplished magician, despite his conjuring pratfalls. Sleight-of-hand gave him the attention he lacked at home and at school. Comedy and alcohol (both outwardly convivial yet essentially solitary vices) eased the symptoms rather than curing the disease. By the time he had become a star, being a loner had become a habit.

Fisher never really cracks the riddle of what made Cooper so entertaining, yet the details of his career are fascinating. Like so many comics of his day, Hitler gave him his big break. He honed his patter in army concert parties and acquired his trademark fez during a troop show in Egypt (he'd lost his pith helmet). Yet it took the BBC a while to get the joke. Initially they dismissed him as an "unattractive young man".

Despite Fisher's best efforts, his subject remains unfathomable, a man without a private voice, so there's no real thrust to the narrative - but then Cooper's life story wasn't a dramatic rise and fall, more an erratic amble. As Fisher points out, he is an archetypal figure, like Mr Punch or Mr Pickwick, so the plain facts are interesting enough. Most showbiz biographies are works of memory or scholarship. This conscientious portrait combines the best of both.