Comic brought back to brief life

THIS is the year of the one-actor show. We have seen Edith Piaf come to life through singer Jeannie Lewis, and Hitler strutting the stage in the body of Pip Utton.

Now Utton has turned his extraordinary abilities to Tony Hancock, the great British comedian who killed himself in a Sydney hotel room in 1968, aged only 44.

Hancock's Last Half-Hour recreates those final moments of disintegration, as Utton/Hancock stumbles around a room littered with books, papers and half-empty bottles of liquor, trying to explain how he came to be there.

There are many subtle references in the script to Hancock's life and work.

There are moments when Utton's version of Hancock's black humour is funny enough to make the audience laugh out loud, but this is not by any stretch a piece of comedy, and even the jokes become more and more sickeningly bitter as the performance goes on.

Utton, made up with Hancock's jowls and famous thick eyebrows, is an uncanny doppelganger. He captures perfectly the roll and punch of Hancock's delivery, even making a joke of some of his physical tics, like rubbing his fingers on his lapels.