Jus' Like That, Tyne Theatre, Newcastle

LOVE was in the air on Valentine's night... directed at a giant comic who died 21 years ago. There obviously can't be another Tommy Cooper - the sweaty genius of schoolboy humour - but Jerome Flynn almost fills the famous red fez to capacity, and a large audience guffawed and applauded him through the opening night of a week-long visit to Tyneside as he paid homage to Cooper's famous magic moments and comedy routines.

Most on-lookers could probably add the punchlines with "huh-huh-huh" hand gestures, but Flynn is always in charge even when the famous faulty-legged table actually collapses and throws half his props off the stage. Magic advisor Geoffrey Durham has done wonders tracking down most of Cooper's old memorabilia.

Most important of all, there's a backstage scene where Cooper associate John Fisher's script allows Flynn to conduct a semi-serious look at the magical man's life and obsessive drinking habits.

Director Simon Callow was prowling the back of the stalls with a look of concern on his face, and the first 20 minutes did lack a little musical accompaniment to support the stop-start nature of Cooper's act. There are six vaudeville-style Cooperettes, who have been given undemanding dance routines by choreographer Craig Revel Horwood, but our focus never shifts from Flynn who adds stunts, song and comic dance to those "what about that?" moments of glass-bottle-bottle-glass brilliance... and then I laughed until all four cheeks ached.

Viv Hardwick

Runs until Saturday. Box Office: 0870 1451200

Telstar, Darlington Civic Theatre

IN ITS simplest terms, this is the story of a musical genius living above a handbag shop in the early 1960s. In reality, it is an unmissable tale of creativity and destruction with the same power to move and shock as any Greek tragedy.

It is a character study of Joe Meek, the record producer responsible for some of the biggest hits of the 1960s. Written by Nick Moran (star of Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels) and featuring Linda Robson and Adam Rickett, it is hilarious and unnerving by turns.

Set in Joe's rented London flat where he lived and worked, we see his flashes of inspiration interspersed with drug fuelled rants as some of the biggest names in the music industry enter his world. They are either encouraged or, more often than not, given short shrift and a burst of blue language. He is camp, angry, funny and heartbreaking by turns, and this complex character is performed excellently by Con O'Neill. Joe is a man of very contrasting halves - and the play reveals itself in a similar way.

The loud, busy carefree life gives way in Act 2 to loneliness and silence. As he breaks apart so does his flat... and soon his world. The audience is left with a pounding heart and the realisation of what this brilliant man could have achieved had he lived. You don't need to have been around in the 1960s or even be a music fan to love this play - it is simply superb. Catch it now, it'll be on the big screen before long.

Telstar runs until Saturday. Box Office: (01325) 486555

Michelle Hedger

Published: ??/??/2004