Troy Hawke to the rescue!

He might portray a debonair, dandified gentleman from the 1930s – but comedian Milo McCabe has shown himself to be a latter-day crimefighter.

The stand-up thwarted an alleged shoplifter, while dressed in the smoking jacket of his rakish alter-ego Troy Hawke.

McCabe was shooting a hidden-camera video on Liverpool’s College Lane when a man sprinted past him – hotly pursued by an employee of the North Face store.

Realising that something was wrong, McCabe gave chase to the apparent thief,  then was joined by another pedestrian, who tripped the man up. Then McCabe blocked the man’s escape.

The man then dropped two jackets and said: ‘Have them back.’

McCabe then returned to his position on the street, without breaking character, and resumed filming, saying it was ‘a lovely bit of street drama.’

Here's the incident:

‘I was filming one of my hidden camera Troy Hawke videos with fellow comedian Will Hutchby,' McCabe explained to Chortle.

'This one involved me trying to get people on the street of Liverpool to adopt endangered words that are becoming obsolete and falling out of use in the language. I was basically standing on the high street, imploring passers-by to put these archaic words into their rotation so they wouldn’t "die"'.

Describing what went through his mind, the comic, said: 'It was an odd reaction I had, I have to be honest. I saw the guy sprinting down the street and thought, "It’d be funny if I ask this guy to adopt a word as he’s sprinting away from me."

‘So I started to ask him. Then I took a closer look at him – and then spotted the other man chasing him down the street. I instinctively started running but for some reason couldn’t commit to it until I looked over at the man chasing with a look that said "Should I?…

'He read my look correctly and shouted "Yes!" so I pegged it after the guy and was about to catch up when some absolute hero, who was on his phone at the time, reached out a leg and tripped him over, seemingly without pausing his conversation.

‘I ran round the other side and blocked the thief off, who then looked at me with a mix of resignation and blank surprise and decided the game was up.'

'He returned the goods and I carried on with my sketch with the robbery victim, who adopted the word "Uglyography".

'Then I thought "Fuck me, I hope Will caught that on film!"’

No further action was reportedly taken against the alleged shoplifter.

McCabe begins a mini-tour of The Talented Mr Hawke at the Leicester Comedy Festival next month.

Published: 23 Jan 2018