Why did I watch this?

[TheMurk]

There is absolutely nothing on TV at the moment and last night I found myself on Channel 5 watching a thing about Tommy Cooper.

The only thing I know about him is that he died on stage. I was watching the programme and found it quite unsettling to see as he was clearly suffering from ill health, looking clammy and sweaty and also seemingly drunk in quite a few of the clips.

I decided to google him to find out more and one of the top results was a YouTube video which I clicked on and before I knew it I had watched the actual moment he passed away on stage.

Now I feel awful! I feel like a terrible human for watching someone else suffer, I feel stupid for clicking on a video and seeing this (it wasn’t shown on the programme) and I feel haunted by this man’s last moments.

I can’t stop thinking about it and now I feel like I’ve “wished bad luck on myself” somehow.

Awful.

Please dont feel bad about yourself.
I along with thousands of others watched the live show and laughed along with the audience as he died .
Doing the unexpected was part of his act so him falling backwards in a ridiculous costume was completely understandable for his act. The last thing he said was Thank you which again was a large part of his patter. So there was nothing except the lack of movement which would alert anyone watching that this was his last moments.
It was devastating at the time though. I remember speaking to someone about it the next day and tearing up and being unable to finish the sentence.
You have had a shock just the same and need time to process it.
But you havent brought yourself bad luck .Really you havent.

It actually took me a moment to realise what I was watching, at first I thought it was part of the act too.

I am surprised it’s available on YouTube to be honest, it seems like something they would take down.

Must have been crazy to watch it happen on Tv. I just can’t stop thinking about it.

I was still school age when he died, but my dad (also passed away now) was a really big fan and i was familiar with TC on our telly.

It is shocking. However I like to believe he might well have been pleased as punch to have spent his last moments making his audience genuinely laugh. No one in the audience at that moment knowingly saw anything horrifying or shocking. Just Tommy Cooper being Tommy Cooper doing what he loved and what he was loved for and buggering about on stage.

RIP Tommy

I still remember watching it as a child. How long ago was it?

I remember watching that as it happened. My Mum said something like “I’m not sure he’s alright” and us all gradually realising he wasn’t. It wasn’t nice to look back on, but at the time as pp says above, it didn’t differ from his usual act.

Not sure how I feel about it being circulated on YouTube and I certainly wouldn’t go and look for it on purpose but you didn’t know and how can watching a lovely man who loved to make people laugh have brought bad luck on you?

Agree with Laiste - he’d have loved going like that. It was exactly the right way for him to go.

Terribly sad, but he was never going to have a long life with the drinking etc. My mum says we were all watching that performance on TV (I was 5/6ish), I don’t remember it though.

I actually think it does people good to witness death, it’s the last real taboo and yet we will all experience it!

I watched it live too...my mother said he’s collapsed , it’s not part of the act, then it cut to break.
I remember the Bradford stadium fire too...I still feel guilty about watching it

@Megan2018 I have never seen a death happen before, I don’t know why it makes me feel so uncomfortable as I am generally quite a pragmatic person.

But I feel like it opens up something that makes you think about mortality more, and I know it’s silly but it sort of attracts more death into your life? I don’t know if that makes sense but it’s hard to explain.

Well, you can either concentrate on In the midst of life we are in death or Glass bottle, bottle glass.
I know which is more likely to raise a nostalgic smile for me.

I did quite enjoy the glass bottle bottle glass thing, mostly how much he amused himself doing it!