The tragedy of a comic genius

His first Fringe hit exposed the bizarre life of Kenneth Williams. This year David Benson has turned his attention to the late Frankie Howerd. Janet Street-Porter is impressed

I met Frankie Howerd in 1973 when I was presenting a daily radio show for LBC. Sent to interview him in his dressing room at the London Palladium, where he was topping the bill in panto, I nervously waited for hours before being finally admitted to the inner sanctum. I don't know who was the more tortured by the experience, Frankie or me.

The place was a total tip, half-eaten meals covered every surface, filthy underwear and discarded booze bottles lay forgotten on the floor. Frankie was in a dressing gown that had seen better days. His toupee looked like a squirrel from Mars that had crash-landed on his head. But I will never forget my encounter with my hero. It consisted of a lot of "yes, no, yes, really? ooh ... ah ..."

When I played the tape back Frankie had said nothing of any note, except that he was superstitious about having anything in his room and rehearsals were a trial which he loathed. But if only I had had a camera. The body language revealed everything.

David Benson's new one-man show at the Edinburgh Fringe starts with a sketch which encapsulates the horrific indeterminate, dithering insecurity of Howerd perfectly. In a recording studio an exhausted orchestra have had 14 unsuccessful attempts to record a Sinatra song. Frankie has stormed off and the producer is trying to placate all and sundry. Suddenly he spots young Nobby by the tea urn, who is sent to the master's dressing room to whisper sweet nothings in his ear. Soon the show is back on the road.

David Benson not only provides us with an uncanny rendition of Howerd's mannerisms, but he brilliantly conjures up that gruesome Fifties showbiz world with its Val (Parnell), Dickies (Henderson and Valentine) and of course Alma (Cogan).

Four years ago Benson took Edinburgh by storm with his tour-de-force show Think No Evil of Us based on the bizarre life of Kenneth Williams. Again not only did he fit into the skin of the camp genius perfectly, but he provided us with an astonishing glimpse into the tortured world of a man who was more obsessed with his bowel movements than almost anything else.

Benson won awards and toured Think No Evil of Us for two years. When I saw it in Edinburgh I was knocked out. I'd done a couple of TV shows with Kenneth as well as a radio commercial, and it seemed that Benson had managed not only to impersonate Williams faultlessly but had developed the idea of a tribute show into something opinionated, insightful and acerbic.

I missed his next endeavour, based on Princess Diana's funeral, which received a mixed reception. Now he's back, with his subject matter again a dead comic icon. This show isn't an easy ride, there are bits that don't work, bits that are frankly flat and slightly embarrassing. But compared to most of what's on in Edinburgh this year, it's a gem. It hasn't had a great reception because it's not a bended-knee tribute. It's a narrative interwoven with the story of the stop-start career of David Benson himself.

After the opening scene- setter, David stops being Frankie and friends, and takes us through a quasi encounter-group session where we all have to share our memories and thoughts about Howerd. As most of the audience are over 50, it's clear these are his fans from the great days of radio comedy. They have a bit of a rose-tinted view of their hero. It's all rather patronising and Benson as our therapist seems slightly ill at ease. We travel somewhat tortuously through the highs and lows of Frankie's life, in a series of disjointed recollections via Up Pompeii and the Carry On films, mentioning his flirtation with satire on That Was The Week That Was via a chance meeting with Peter Cook.

At this point I felt like a student at some third-rate university in a lecture on comedy development in the 1960s, but when Benson moves on to trace how Frankie's career rose and faltered, just like his own, we are on stronger ground. Talking to his alter-ego, Benson explains how, after being feted for the Kenneth Williams show, he has been reduced to working in an office since last November to make ends meet. Following a television appearance with Nicholas Lyndhurst on Goodnight Sweetheart he received no further offers, spent his book advance and got writer's block. Like Frankie, he's become bitter and twisted and the sight of a giant billboard promoting the new TV series of his former Edinburgh contemporary Graham Norton is the final straw. He flips.

The highlight of the whole show isn't about Frankie, but features Benson culling all the second-rate people in the entertainment industry he despises. Norton gets buggered to death with his own BAFTA trophy followed by the ritual assassination of Carol Vorderman. I was in fits of laughter. However not all the crumblies in the audience were so captivated. For the finale, Benson morphs into Frankie once more, performing one of his classic sketches written by Eric Sykes.

This show needs a lot of work before it could play anywhere else. It's like watching a project in development. But Benson is wrong to moan about his failure to arrive on television. He belongs in the theatre because that's where the best of his ideas work. He has realised that the British obsession with nostalgia is a double-edged sword. We have a rich comedy past, but we need people like Mr Benson to debunk it for us.

'To Be Frank': Pleasance Dome, Edinburgh (0131 556 6550), until 27 August