The plank

The plank

I can't remember when I'd first seen The plank but I must have been very young because I had no idea who Tommy Cooper was, let alone Eric Sykes - and Cooper I knew and admired by the time I entered adolescence and started thinking about what I liked in comedy. Sykes became another firm favourite later on, so the indelible memories of The plank that made me spend quite some time looking for a video tape of this film (that was long before the Internet) were fully justified by later comedic experiences.

The plank is classed under slapstick but it's mostly subtle and slow, largely gentle, drawing from centuries of theatrical experience with the physical comedy one can derive from a long object and its handling. The eponymous plank remains the centre of attention, complemented by a rich collection of amusing incidents, some familiar and predictable and others more original, like when Sykes insists on opening a paneless window to get a bottle of milk from the milkman standing outside and Cooper closing the window later because he's feeling the draft.

When it comes to comedy about building, The plank is to my knowledge the only film fully dedicated to the subject - as opposed to having some slapstick related to building at some point in the film. In its old-fashioned, slow-paced way, it remains a monument to what a great generation of comedians knew and managed to preserve.