COMIC Phil Cool started his career at a folk club called The Boggery in Solihull, England, a town not known for being populated by particularly funny people. If they dropped an atom bomb on Solihull you would hear the cheer 3,000 miles away.
The Boggery was hidden away at the back of a damp and dingy rugby club changing room, but a number of those that starred there in the early 70s overcame the omnipresent smell of stale beer and jockstraps to become famous; Jasper Carrott is the club's most famous son.
I had the pleasure of being present at some of Cool's early shows at The Boggery, but all I can remember of them - apart from the fact that I was always late for work the morning after - is that everyone laughed a lot and that he did a mean impersonationof Kirk Douglas in The Vikings, right down to the dimple in the chin. On one occasion someone dropped a beer glass at the back of the room and Cool went immediately cross-eyed and said ''ahhh, glassdropper'', a joke which is too arduous to explain here. Ifyou don't understand it ask any Englishman over the age of 30.
Anyway, what all this is leading up to is Eye On Hong Kong (Pearl, 7.20pm), in which the omnipresent Gloria Wu interviews Cool, who was in town recently for a couple of shows in Wan Chai.
The greatest problem Cool has had in keeping his comic momentum going is that many of the people he has impersonated have died. Others just don't travel well. Some - Frankie Howerd, Eric Morecambe - are in both categories.
But Cool has diversified and these days includes among his party pieces an impression of a, er, car.
Among other things happening on Eye On Hong Kong are Willy Ng behind the scenes at Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute to non-Germans), which is being staged as part of the Hong Kong Arts Festival 94, and the latest on Richard Marx, a man whose haircut is more entertaining than his music.
