FULLY ROASTED

Up there with Richard Burton's legendary reading of Under Milk Wood and Laurence Olivier's iconic rendition of Hamlet's soliloquy has to be Peter Falk's comic turn as Lieutenant Columbo at Dean Martin's Celebrity Roast of Frank Sinatra in 1978.

A couple of things that amaze me about Falk's performance as television's beloved Lieutenant here are, first, how effortlessly he remains unmistakably Columbo throughout the entire monologue — never once breaking character — and, second, how completely he inhabits the role of the dishevelled detective, as fully as any great actor I've seen with any performance.

Considering the elite celebrity guests sitting at the roast table — including giants of comedy such as Don Rickles and George Burns, as well as Hollywood royalty like James Stewart, Gene Kelly, and Ernest Borgnine, not to mention the future President of the United States, Ronald Reagan — Falk could have been forgiven for feeling a little nervous in such company. But he seems more relaxed than they are, playing off them like the virtuoso actor that he is.

The genius opening gambit for Falk's bit — which Dean Martin sets up in his introductory speech welcoming Lieutenant Columbo to the stage — is the idea that the shabby-coat-wearing detective had inspired the look for several of the crooner's broken-heart-themed Capitol albums of the 1950s, such as Songs for Young Lovers, No One Cares, and Point of No Return. It’s a hilarious gag and one that Falk expands on, along with his telegram invitation to the roast itself, which he proudly shows to the audience — reminding them that this is a Xerox, not the original, which his wife has taken to the bank to keep safe in a vault.

Falk continues to maximise the full value of his gags along the way, including asking Sinatra to sign a napkin with his signature — correcting him several times before settling on a final version — and later reminding him to return the dish containing his wife's lasagne in the mail once he's through with it.

Perhaps all his years working with the director John Cassavetes had enabled the actor to inhabit his character so completely that his presence seems to overshadow even the stars sitting on either side of him, as if he had taken on his television persona to the same degree that a Burton or an Olivier did on stage with their great roles.

Somehow it feels like more than comedy; it's a complete performance, with every minutia of the character included — from patting down pockets to feigning embarrassment about asking an awkward question — and, as always, the humanity of the character itself, a kind of gumshoe Sherlock Holmes.

You can tell just how successful the monologue is by the smiling, laughing faces of Sinatra and his celebrity roasters.

Perhaps I might have been tempted to ask Sinatra who shot JFK at the table — but, mind you, the Lieutenant possesses far more tact than I. His killer gag about a rumour that Jerry Vale has been singing Sinatra's vocals for him now that he's getting old is risky enough.

I know plenty of guys who would have been whacked for less.