Rock On, Tommy! Book

Comedians are a funny lot. To be sure, most of them, most nights, are a dab hand at the old 'funny ha ha'. But what we the audience prefer (too often?), is an unexplainable bout of 'funny peculiar'. Cannon And Ball do not disappoint.In the 1980s Tommy Cannon and Bobby Ball (surprisingly, not their real surnames) were very famous indeed. 1960's life in an Oldham factory had given way to a 70's merry-go-round of working men's clubs, pantomimes, and summer seasons at the Blackpool Pavilion. It was in the 1980's however, when Cannon And Ball were household names with their own top-rating ITV series (not to mention the huge earning power such fame entails) that the former welders found they could no longer hold it all together. At the height of their fame, when the on-stage banter was at its warmest, Cannon and Ball didn't speak to each other off stage--at all--for years. Meanwhile, Bobby's vicious temper earned the pair the reputation of being the nastiest in the business, sinking so low he threatened to kill a pantomime dame for bad custard pie technique. Something had to change. Bobby Ball found God in the dressing room of Bradford's Alhambra theatre. Tommy Cannon also made his acquaintance, albeit some seven years later. Unfortunately it wasn't so easy to put their hands on the £900,000 the taxman wanted. As their personal lives improved, the comedy career of Cannon and Ball wasn't so much rockin' on--it was rolling downhill at an alarming rate. Rock On Tommyis told in the words of the people involved. Although not an exhaustive record of the world of Cannon and Ball (dates get a little fuzzy here and there) this is a fascinating and accessible read, despite not always managing to capture the raw emotion of such a truly extraordinary tale. Their memoir is written with humility in the light of past mistakes. It appears to gloss over little--despite Chris Gidney's difficult task of joining two very different viewpoints into one-and refuses to make excuses for the actions of its anti-heroes along the way. It is this readiness to accept responsibility and look to the future which, in the end, makes this read truly rewarding. Perhaps the most interesting people aren't always the nicest. And perhaps it's a funny old world after all. --Helen LamontRead More