Legendary Las Vegas performer Frank Marino took one look at the bunch of bygone British entertainers before him and dazzled them with his CV.
“I’ve been blessed and lucky enough to have worked alongside Celine Dion, Jennifer Lopez, Cher, Britney Spears…”
Well, move aside, J-Lo. Beat it, Celine. Because now he’s working alongside Cannon & Ball, Celebrity Squares’ Kenny Lynch, Peggy from Hi-de-Hi, Bernie Clifton’s ostrich…
It’s for a one-night-only variety show to end all variety shows, which it very probably will, starring nine old-timers in Sin City, on ITV’s Last Laugh in Vegas.
A terrible idea, you’d think. And if they were airing only the final big performance, you’d be right.
Fortunately, though, they’ve stuck all their egos in a house together, while they prepare for one last shot at cracking Vegas, and have filmed the results.
And you just know that when such a series begins with 1960s singer Jess Conrad saying: “It’s going to be such a happy time,” and Opportunity Knocks pianist Bobby Crush adds: “I hope we don’t fall out like they do on those awful television shows…” they’re going to fall out like they do in those awful television shows.
In true Big Brother tradition, the rows began over the choices of bedrooms.
I say “rows”. “Threats of physical violence” is a more accurate reflection.
Jess, the panto villain who speaks in the third person (“Listen! Jess is speaking!”), told Bobby Ball: “Don’t let this (face) fool you, I can have a fight.”
And Tommy Cannon replied to Jess moaning about being left with a single bed by saying: “I’m not bothered what you’ve got. I’ll kick your teeth in, in a minute.”
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They’ve already had enough collectively of serial complainer Bobby Crush who moaned about everything, from the colour of the bedsheets to the lack of air-con, shortage of rehearsal time and the apparent binning of his Liberace tribute act. He even complained about Cannon & Ball disliking his complaining.
The threats continued as 1970s stand-up Mick Miller reacted to a styling suggestion by group mentor Frank: “He said I should get my hair cut. I was nearly going to call the ambulance for him.”
The irony is that Frank Marino looks like a 1987 Michael Jackson impersonator who’s been left too long under an industrial hairdryer before being run over by Donny Osmond.
Yet the truth is that he knows his onions and is the real star here.
Crucially, he had the measure of the celebs immediately, an attribute that saves the likes of Jess Conrad, who actually said: “It’s very difficult for showbiz people to mix with ‘ordinaries’, we have to really relax with our own kind,” and Last Laugh in Vegas in general, from themselves.
“Is the chicken drunk?” he asked of Bernie Clifton’s ostrich, to which the entertainer could only respond with a face that said: “Fair point.”
He’s an excellent ego-massager when called for, telling Kenny Lynch: “You’re going to be the first person since the great Sammy Davis played Las Vegas that has that style, that pizazz.”
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But he can also deliver some home truths, leaving poor Anita Harris in tears and “feeling vulnerable and a bit lonely” after calling her singing “cabaret”.
And he said of Su Pollard: “Su is a star and Su knows she’s a star. Su is the comedians I go out with that never have the switch off.”
In other words, she’s a ruddy nightmare. Though, to be fair, she did almost have a successful tea run at a Starbucks drive-thru when the stars realised their house didn’t come with a kettle.
Successful, that is, apart from spilling the hot drinks on herself and the whole language barrier thing as she attempted to place her order over the intercom: “Do you do builder’s tea?” Assistant: “Erm…?”
Su said afterwards: “I just had to speak to this box with a hole in it in the wall.”
Beats Bobby Crush’s Liberace routine, I suppose.
* Last Laugh in Vegas continues on ITV at 9pm next Tuesday.