Tony Hancock
Encyclopedia
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock (12 May 1924 – 24 June 1968) was an English actor and comedian.
, Birmingham
, England, (some sources incorrectly say Small Heath
, a different Birmingham
district) but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth
, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer.
After his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers lived with their mother and stepfather at a small hotel then called The Durlston Court (now renamed Hotel Celebrity). He attended Durlston Court Preparatory School, a boarding school at Durlston
in Swanage
(moved during World War II
and now located in Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire) and Bradfield College
in Reading, Berkshire
, but left school at the age of fifteen.
In 1942, during World War II
, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment
. Following a failed audition for the Entertainments National Service Association
(ENSA), he ended up on The Ralph Reader
Gang Show
. After the war, he returned to the stage and eventually worked as resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre
, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time, and worked on radio shows such as Workers' Playtime and Variety Bandbox
.
Over 1951–52, for one series, Hancock was a cast member of Educating Archie
, in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy. His appearance in this show brought him national recognition, and a catchphrase he used frequently in the show, "Flippin' kids!", became popular parlance. The same year, he made regular appearances on BBC Television
's popular light entertainment
show Kaleidoscope. In 1954, he was given his own eponymous BBC
radio show, Hancock's Half Hour
.
, Hancock's Half Hour lasted for seven years (including television) and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and from 1956 ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name. The show starred Hancock as Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" in East Cheam. Most episodes portrayed his everyday life as a struggling comedian with aspirations toward straight acting. Some episodes, however, changed this to show him as being a successful actor and/or comedian, or occasionally as having a different career completely such as a struggling (and incompetent) barrister. Radio episodes were also prone to more surreal storylines, which would have been impractical on television, such as Hancock buying a puppy that grows to be as tall as himself.
Sidney James
featured heavily in both the radio and TV versions, while the radio version also included regulars Bill Kerr
, Kenneth Williams
and over the years Moira Lister
, Andrée Melly
and Hattie Jacques
. The series rejected the variety format then dominant in British radio comedy and instead used a form drawn more from everyday life: the situation comedy
, with the humour coming from the characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Owing to a contractual wrangle with producer Jack Hylton
, Hancock had an ITV
series, The Tony Hancock Show
, during this period, which ran in 1956 and 1957 either side of the first BBC television series.
During the run of his BBC radio and television series, Hancock became an enormous star in Britain. Like few others, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of 'the lad himself' were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released as an LP.
As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sidney James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James' character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them.
Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act and the last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply Hancock, was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: The Blood Donor
, in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains famous lines such as, "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!" (The doctor's response: "You won't have an empty arm... or an empty anything!") Another well-known instalment is The Radio Ham, in which Hancock plays an amateur radio
enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking its position. Both of these programmes were later re-recorded for a commercial 1961 LP in the style of radio episodes, and these versions have been continuously available ever since.
Returning home with his wife from recording the "Bowmans" episode, featuring a parody of The Archers
, Hancock was involved in a minor car accident. He was not badly hurt, despite going through the car windscreen, but he did suffer concussion and he was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show to be recorded. The result was that Hancock had to perform by reading from teleprompters (TV monitors displaying the relevant sections of script). Viewers of the programme may notice that he is not always looking at the other actors, but in another direction entirely. Hancock came to rely on teleprompters instead of learning scripts whenever he had career difficulties.
Up until the Hancock series, every British television comedy show had been performed live. Hancock's highly strung personality made the demands of live broadcasts a constant worry, with the result that, starting from 1959 Hancocks Half Hour, the programmes were recorded before transmission.
The usual argument is that Hancock’s mixture of egotism and self-doubt led to a spiral of self-destructiveness. Cited as evidence is his gradual ostracism of those who contributed to his success: Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Sidney James, and finally his scriptwriters, Galton and Simpson. His reasoning was that to refine his craft, he had to ditch his catch-phrases and become realistic. He argued, for example, that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone like Kenneth Williams, who would appear with his well known oily catchphrase 'Good evening'. Hancock believed the comedy suffered because people did not believe in the policeman, they knew it was just Williams doing a funny voice.
Hancock read huge amounts, desperately trying to find out the 'why we are here' of life. He read large numbers of philosophers, classic novels and political books. He was a supporter of the Labour Party
, and admired Michael Foot
above any other politician.
, the film had to be renamed, and the new title, Call Me Genius, inflamed American critics. Bosley Crowther
in The New York Times
thought Hancock "even less comical" than Norman Wisdom
.
His break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with his long-term agent Beryl Vertue
. During the previous six months the writers had developed without payment three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle in consultation with the comedian. Worried that the projects were wrong for him, the first two had been abandoned incomplete; the third was written to completion at the writers' insistence, only for Hancock to reject it. Hancock is thought not to have read any of the screenplays. The result of the break was that Hancock chose to separately develop something previously discussed and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write a Comedy Playhouse series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot for Steptoe and Son
, played by two straight actors, Wilfrid Brambell
and Harry H. Corbett
; it was later to become the basis for the hit U.S. television series Sanford and Son
which starred Redd Foxx
. To write that "something previously discussed", which became The Punch and Judy Man, Hancock hired writer Philip Oakes, who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay.
In The Punch and Judy Man
(1962), Hancock played a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life; after Billie Whitelaw
withdrew, Sylvia Syms
played his nagging social climber of a wife, and John Le Mesurier
a sand sculptor. The depth to which the character played by Hancock had merged with that of the actor is clear in the film. When Hancock first read the script, he looked at Phillip Oakes, and his only comment was "You bastard..." Hancock knew that the film was going to be about him, and the film owes much to Hancock’s memories of his childhood in Bournemouth.
in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, did not value their work, and the two men severed their professional relationship. The principal writer of Hancock's ATV series, Godfrey Harrison, had scripted the successful George Cole radio and television series A Life Of Bliss, and also Hancock's first regular television appearances on Fools Rush In (a segment of Kaleidoscope
) more than a decade earlier. Harrison had trouble meeting deadlines, so other writers assisted, including Terry Nation
.
Coincidentally, the transmission of the series clashed in the early months of 1963 with the second series of Steptoe and Son
written by Hancock's former writers, Galton and Simpson. Critical comparisons did not favour Hancock's series. Around 1965 Hancock made a series of 11 TV adverts for the Egg Marketing Board. Hancock starred in the adverts with Patricia Hayes
as Mrs Cravatte in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts.
Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, but by then alcoholism had affected his performances. After hosting two unsuccessful variety series for ABC Television
, The Blackpool Show and Hancock's, he was contracted to make a 13-part series called Hancock Down Under for the Seven Network
of Australian television. This was to be his first and only television series filmed in colour; however, after arriving in Australia in March 1968 he only completed three programmes.
In one of his suicide notes he wrote: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times". His ashes were brought back to the UK in an Air France hold-all by satirist Willie Rushton
and in reference to his fame and knowing love of cricket, his ashes travelled back in the first class cabin.
Spike Milligan
commented in 1989: "Very difficult man to get on with. He used to drink excessively. You felt sorry for him. He ended up on his own. I thought, he's got rid of everybody else, he's going to get rid of himself and he did."
A memorial plaque marks the location of where Tony's and his mother's ashes were scattered at St Dunstan Church in Cranford Park (near Heathrow Airport).
model, after a brief courtship.
The situation became more complicated as Freddie Ross
(who worked as his publicist from 1954) became more involved in his life, eventually becoming his mistress. He divorced his first wife in 1965, and married Freddie in December of that year. This second marriage was short-lived. During these years Hancock was also involved with Joan Le Mesurier
(née Malin), the new wife of actor John Le Mesurier
, Hancock's best friend and a regular supporting character-actor from his television series. Joan was later to describe the relationship in her book Lady Don't Fall Backwards, including the claim that her husband readily forgave the affair. If it had been anyone else, he said, he wouldn't have understood it, but with Tony Hancock, it made sense. In July 1966, Freddie took an overdose, but survived. Arriving in Blackpool to record an edition of his variety series, Hancock was met by pressmen asking about his wife's attempted suicide. The final dissolution of the marriage took place a few days ahead of Hancock's own suicide.
Cicely developed her own problems with alcohol and died from a fall in 1969, the year after the death of her former husband. Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry. She has been based in New York City for many years. She was the founder of, and is a prominent member of, the East Coast chapter of BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
.
There is a sculpture by Bruce Williams (1996) in his honour in Old Square, Corporation Street
, Birmingham, a plaque on the house where he was born in Hall Green
, Birmingham and a plaque on the wall of the hotel in Bournemouth where he spent some of his early life.
In a 2002 poll, BBC radio listeners voted Hancock their favourite British comedian. Commenting on this poll, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson observed that modern-day creations such as Alan Partridge and David Brent owed much of their success to mimicking dominant features of Tony Hancock's character. "The thing they've all got in common is self-delusion," they remarked in a statement issued by the BBC. "They all think they're more intelligent than everyone else, more cultured, that people don't recognise their true greatness – self-delusion in every sense. And there's nothing people like better than failure." Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes for BBC 7, commented "Classic comedians such as Tony Hancock and the Goons are obviously still firm favourites with BBC radio listeners. Age doesn't seem to matter – if it's funny, it's funny." Dan Peat of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society said of the poll: "It's fantastic news. If he was alive he would have taken it one of two ways. He would probably have made some kind of dry crack, but in truth he would have been chuffed."
In a 2005 poll to find 'The Comedian's Comedian' Hancock was voted the twelfth greatest comedian by fellow comics and 'comedy insiders'.
The last eight or so years of Tony Hancock's life were the subject of a 1991 BBC 'Screen One' television movie, called Hancock, starring Alfred Molina
. Another BBC drama - Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
(2006) - saw Martin Trenaman
play the role of Hancock opposite Michael Sheen
as Williams. Hancock's affair with Joan Le Mesurier was also dramatised in Hancock and Joan
on BBC Four
and transmitted on 26 March 2008 as part of the Curse of Comedy season. Hancock was portrayed by Ken Stott
and Joan by Maxine Peake
.
The Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers
named their 2007 album, Send Away the Tigers
, after a phrase Hancock used to refer to "battling one's inner demons by getting drunk". The album opens with lines referring to Hancock's final days: "There’s no hope in the colonies / So catch yourself a lifeline / Things have gone wrong too many times / So catch yourself a slow boat to China".
Musician Pete Doherty
is a fan of Hancock and entitled the first album by his band The Libertines
Up the Bracket
after one of Hancock's catch phrases ("Are you looking for a punch up the bracket?" / "I'll give you a punch up the bracket"). He also wrote a song called "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" in his honour. The title is the same as the book in the Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Missing Page". The Libertines mention him in their song "You're My Waterloo", stating, "But I’m not Tony Hancock baby" after the line "But you’re not Judy Garland". The opening track of Up the Bracket also features an approximation of a line from Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Poetry Society": "Lead pipes are fortune made".
Galton and Simpson
were involved in a remake of six Hancock's Half Hour episodes starring Paul Merton
in 1996 and, although not critically acclaimed, these do represent the most up-to-date revisiting of Hancock's work, 28 years after his death.
In a bizarre plot twist in season two of the television show Psychoville
(first broadcast in 2011), the character Oscar Lomax (played by Steve Pemberton
) reveals himself to be, in fact, Tony Hancock.
Many of the best TV episodes of Hancock have now been adapted to the stage by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, with David Pibworth, and are available for production at www.classiccomedyscripts.co.uk
The BBC issued CDs of the surviving seventy-four radio episodes in six box sets, one per series, with the sixth box containing several out-of-series specials. This was followed by the release of one large boxed set containing all the others in a special presentation case; while it includes no extra material, the larger box alone (without any CDs) still fetches high prices on online marketplaces like eBay
, where Hancock memorabilia remains a thriving industry. There have also been VHS video releases of the BBC TV series.
So far five Region 2 DVDs have been released:
Episodes of the radio series may often be heard on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4Extra.
Films written by Galton and Simpson
Early life and career
Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall GreenHall Green
Not to be confused with Hall Green, Wolverhampton or Hall Green, SandwellHall Green is an area and ward in south Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee...
, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England, (some sources incorrectly say Small Heath
Small Heath
Small Heath can refer to:* Small Heath, Birmingham, an area of Birmingham, England** Birmingham Small Heath ** Small Heath or Small Heath Alliance, former names of Birmingham City F.C....
, a different Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
district) but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in Holdenhurst Road, worked as a comedian and entertainer.
After his father's death in 1934, Hancock and his brothers lived with their mother and stepfather at a small hotel then called The Durlston Court (now renamed Hotel Celebrity). He attended Durlston Court Preparatory School, a boarding school at Durlston
Durlston
Durlston is an area of Swanage, in England. The area was developed by George Burt as a residential suburb, and includes many large Victorian villas as well as modern developments.The area also includes Durlston Country Park....
in Swanage
Swanage
Swanage is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is situated at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck, approximately 10 km south of Poole and 40 km east of Dorchester. The parish has a population of 10,124 . Nearby are Ballard Down and Old Harry Rocks,...
(moved during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and now located in Barton-on-Sea, Hampshire) and Bradfield College
Bradfield College
Bradfield College is a coeducational independent school located in the small village of Bradfield in the English county of Berkshire.The college was founded in 1850 by Thomas Stevens, Rector and Lord of the Manor of Bradfield...
in Reading, Berkshire
Reading, Berkshire
Reading is a large town and unitary authority area in England. It is located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the River Thames and River Kennet, and on both the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway, some west of London....
, but left school at the age of fifteen.
In 1942, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hancock joined the RAF Regiment
RAF Regiment
The Royal Air Force Regiment is a specialist airfield defence corps founded by Royal Warrant in 1942. After a 32 week trainee gunner course, its members are trained and equipped to prevent a successful enemy attack in the first instance; minimise the damage caused by a successful attack; and...
. Following a failed audition for the Entertainments National Service Association
Entertainments National Service Association
The Entertainments National Service Association or ENSA was an organisation set up in 1939 by Basil Dean and Leslie Henson to provide entertainment for British armed forces personnel during World War II. ENSA operated as part of the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes...
(ENSA), he ended up on The Ralph Reader
Ralph Reader
William Henry Ralph Reader CBE , known as Ralph Reader, was a British actor, theatrical producer and songwriter, best known for staging the original Gang Show, a variety entertainment presented by members of the Scouting Movement.Reader was born in Crewkerne, Somerset, England, the son of a...
Gang Show
Gang Show
A Gang Show is a theatrical performance with a cast of youth members of Scouts and sometimes Guides too, by invitation. Adult leaders and parents help out behind the scenes. The aim of the shows is to give young people in Scouting and Guiding the opportunity to develop performance skills and...
. After the war, he returned to the stage and eventually worked as resident comedian at the Windmill Theatre
Windmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street, London. The theatre was famous for its nude tableaux vivants...
, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time, and worked on radio shows such as Workers' Playtime and Variety Bandbox
Variety Bandbox
Variety Bandbox was a British radio variety show transmitted by BBC Radio on the Light Programme. Featuring a mixture of comic performances and music, the show helped to launch the careers of a number of leading British performers....
.
Over 1951–52, for one series, Hancock was a cast member of Educating Archie
Educating Archie
Educating Archie was a BBC Light Programme comedy show broadcast from June 1950 to February 1958 on Sunday lunchtimes featuring ventriloquist Peter Brough and his doll Archie Andrews. The programme was successful despite a ventriloquist on radio seeming strange, though in the United States, Edgar...
, in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy. His appearance in this show brought him national recognition, and a catchphrase he used frequently in the show, "Flippin' kids!", became popular parlance. The same year, he made regular appearances on BBC Television
BBC Television
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...
's popular light entertainment
Light entertainment
Light entertainment is a term used to describe a broad range of usually televisual performances. These include comedies, variety shows, quiz/game shows, sketch shows and people/surprise shows.-Light entertainment in Britain:...
show Kaleidoscope. In 1954, he was given his own eponymous BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
radio show, Hancock's Half Hour
Hancock's Half Hour
Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy, series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr...
.
Peak years
Working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan SimpsonGalton and Simpson
Ray Galton OBE , and Alan Simpson OBE , are British scriptwriters who met in 1948 at a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Surrey county sanatorium near Godalming, on which the sitcom Get Well Soon was based...
, Hancock's Half Hour lasted for seven years (including television) and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and from 1956 ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name. The show starred Hancock as Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock living in the shabby "23 Railway Cuttings" in East Cheam. Most episodes portrayed his everyday life as a struggling comedian with aspirations toward straight acting. Some episodes, however, changed this to show him as being a successful actor and/or comedian, or occasionally as having a different career completely such as a struggling (and incompetent) barrister. Radio episodes were also prone to more surreal storylines, which would have been impractical on television, such as Hancock buying a puppy that grows to be as tall as himself.
Sidney James
Sid James
Sid James was an English-based South African actor and comedian. He made his name as Tony Hancock's co-star in Hancock's Half Hour and also starred in the popular Carry On films. He was known for his trademark "dirty laugh" and lascivious persona...
featured heavily in both the radio and TV versions, while the radio version also included regulars Bill Kerr
Bill Kerr
William 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....
, Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Charles Williams was an English comic actor and comedian. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.-Life and career:Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February...
and over the years Moira Lister
Moira Lister
Moira Lister de Gachassin-Lafite, Vicomtesse d’Orthez was an Anglo-South African film, stage and television actress, and writer.-Early life:...
, Andrée Melly
Andrée Melly
Andrée Melly is an English actress.She appeared in many British films, including the 1954 comedy The Belles of St Trinian's and the 1960 Hammer Horror film The Brides of Dracula...
and Hattie Jacques
Hattie Jacques
Josephine Edwina Jaques was an English comedy actress, known as Hattie Jacques.Starting her career in the 1940s, Jacques first gained attention through her radio appearances with Tommy Handley on ITMA and later with Tony Hancock on Hancock's Half Hour...
. The series rejected the variety format then dominant in British radio comedy and instead used a form drawn more from everyday life: the situation comedy
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
, with the humour coming from the characters and the circumstances in which they find themselves. Owing to a contractual wrangle with producer Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton
Jack Hylton was a British band leader and impresario.He was born John Greenhalgh Hilton in the Great Lever area of Bolton, Lancashire, the son of George Hilton, a cotton yarn twister. His father was an amateur singer at the local Labour Club and Jack learned piano to accompany him on the stage...
, Hancock had an ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
series, The Tony Hancock Show
The Tony Hancock Show
The Tony Hancock Show was a black-and-white British sketch show starring Tony Hancock that was broadcast for two series from 1956 to 1957. It was written by Eric Sykes, Larry Stephens and Ray Galton and Alan Simpson...
, during this period, which ran in 1956 and 1957 either side of the first BBC television series.
During the run of his BBC radio and television series, Hancock became an enormous star in Britain. Like few others, he was able to clear the streets while families gathered together to listen to the eagerly awaited episodes. His character changed slightly over the series, but even in the earliest episodes the key facets of 'the lad himself' were evident. "Sunday Afternoon at Home" and "The Wild Man of the Woods" were top-rating shows and were later released as an LP.
As an actor with considerable experience in films, Sidney James became more important to the show when the television version began. The regular cast was reduced to just the two men, allowing the humour to come from the interaction between them. James' character was the realist of the two, puncturing Hancock's pretensions. His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them.
Hancock became anxious that his work with James was turning them into a double act and the last BBC series in 1961, retitled simply Hancock, was without James. Two episodes are among his best-remembered: The Blood Donor
The Blood Donor
"The Blood Donor" is an episode from comedy series Hancock, the final BBC series featuring British comedian Tony Hancock. First transmitted on 23 June 1961, the show was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and was produced by Duncan Wood. Supporting Hancock were Patrick Cargill, Hugh Lloyd,...
, in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, contains famous lines such as, "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!" (The doctor's response: "You won't have an empty arm... or an empty anything!") Another well-known instalment is The Radio Ham, in which Hancock plays an amateur radio
Amateur radio
Amateur radio is the use of designated radio frequency spectrum for purposes of private recreation, non-commercial exchange of messages, wireless experimentation, self-training, and emergency communication...
enthusiast who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress, but his incompetence prevents him from taking its position. Both of these programmes were later re-recorded for a commercial 1961 LP in the style of radio episodes, and these versions have been continuously available ever since.
Returning home with his wife from recording the "Bowmans" episode, featuring a parody of The Archers
The Archers
The Archers is a long-running British soap opera broadcast on the BBC's main spoken-word channel, Radio 4. It was originally billed as "an everyday story of country folk", but is now described on its Radio 4 web site as "contemporary drama in a rural setting"...
, Hancock was involved in a minor car accident. He was not badly hurt, despite going through the car windscreen, but he did suffer concussion and he was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show to be recorded. The result was that Hancock had to perform by reading from teleprompters (TV monitors displaying the relevant sections of script). Viewers of the programme may notice that he is not always looking at the other actors, but in another direction entirely. Hancock came to rely on teleprompters instead of learning scripts whenever he had career difficulties.
Up until the Hancock series, every British television comedy show had been performed live. Hancock's highly strung personality made the demands of live broadcasts a constant worry, with the result that, starting from 1959 Hancocks Half Hour, the programmes were recorded before transmission.
Introspection
In early 1960, Hancock appeared on the BBC's Face to Face, a half-hour in-depth interview programme conducted by former Labour MP John Freeman. Freeman asked Hancock many searching questions about his life and work. Hancock, who deeply admired his interviewer, often appeared uncomfortable with the questions, but answered them frankly and honestly. Hancock had always been highly self-critical, and it is often argued that this interview heightened this tendency, contributing to his later difficulties. According to Roger, his brother, "It was the biggest mistake he ever made. I think it all started from that really. ...Self-analysis - that was his killer."The usual argument is that Hancock’s mixture of egotism and self-doubt led to a spiral of self-destructiveness. Cited as evidence is his gradual ostracism of those who contributed to his success: Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Sidney James, and finally his scriptwriters, Galton and Simpson. His reasoning was that to refine his craft, he had to ditch his catch-phrases and become realistic. He argued, for example, that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone like Kenneth Williams, who would appear with his well known oily catchphrase 'Good evening'. Hancock believed the comedy suffered because people did not believe in the policeman, they knew it was just Williams doing a funny voice.
Hancock read huge amounts, desperately trying to find out the 'why we are here' of life. He read large numbers of philosophers, classic novels and political books. He was a supporter of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
, and admired Michael Foot
Michael Foot
Michael Mackintosh Foot, FRSL, PC was a British Labour Party politician, journalist and author, who was a Member of Parliament from 1945 to 1955 and from 1960 until 1992...
above any other politician.
The break with Galton and Simpson
Hancock starred in the 1960 film The Rebel, where he played the role of an office worker-turned-artist who finds himself successful after a move to Paris, but only as the result of mistaken identity. Although a success in Britain the film was not well received in the United States: owing to the existence of a contemporary television series of the same nameThe Rebel (TV series)
The Rebel is an American Western television series that ran originally on the ABC network from 1959 to 1961. The program was produced by Goodson-Todman Productions, marking one of their few non-game show ventures...
, the film had to be renamed, and the new title, Call Me Genius, inflamed American critics. Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
thought Hancock "even less comical" than Norman Wisdom
Norman Wisdom
Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, OBE was an English actor, comedian and singer-songwriter best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring his hapless onscreen character Norman Pitkin...
.
His break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with his long-term agent Beryl Vertue
Beryl Vertue
Beryl Vertue is an English television producer and media executive. She is founder and chairman of the independent television production company Hartswood Films....
. During the previous six months the writers had developed without payment three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle in consultation with the comedian. Worried that the projects were wrong for him, the first two had been abandoned incomplete; the third was written to completion at the writers' insistence, only for Hancock to reject it. Hancock is thought not to have read any of the screenplays. The result of the break was that Hancock chose to separately develop something previously discussed and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write a Comedy Playhouse series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot for Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
, played by two straight actors, Wilfrid Brambell
Wilfrid Brambell
Henry Wilfrid Brambell was an Irish film and television actor best known for his role in the British television series Steptoe and Son. He also performed alongside The Beatles in their film A Hard Day's Night, playing Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather.- Early life :Brambell was born in Dublin...
and Harry H. Corbett
Harry H. Corbett
Harry H. Corbett OBE was an English actor.Corbett was best known for his starring role in the popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s...
; it was later to become the basis for the hit U.S. television series Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....
which starred Redd Foxx
Redd Foxx
John Elroy Sanford , better known by his stage name Redd Foxx, was an American comedian and actor, best known for his starring role on the sitcom Sanford and Son.-Early life:...
. To write that "something previously discussed", which became The Punch and Judy Man, Hancock hired writer Philip Oakes, who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay.
In The Punch and Judy Man
The Punch and Judy Man
The Punch and Judy Man is a British comedy film from 1963 directed by Jeremy Summers. It was Tony Hancock's second film in a starring role, following The Rebel .-Plot:...
(1962), Hancock played a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life; after Billie Whitelaw
Billie Whitelaw
Billie Honor Whitelaw, CBE is an English actress. She worked in close collaboration with Irish playwright Samuel Beckett for 25 years and is regarded as one of the foremost interpreters of his works...
withdrew, Sylvia Syms
Sylvia Syms
Sylvia M. L. Syms OBE is a British actress. She is probably best known for her roles in the films Woman in a Dressing Gown , Ice-Cold in Alex , No Trees in the Street , Victim and The Tamarind Seed...
played his nagging social climber of a wife, and John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
a sand sculptor. The depth to which the character played by Hancock had merged with that of the actor is clear in the film. When Hancock first read the script, he looked at Phillip Oakes, and his only comment was "You bastard..." Hancock knew that the film was going to be about him, and the film owes much to Hancock’s memories of his childhood in Bournemouth.
Later years
He moved to ATVAssociated TeleVision
Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...
in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, did not value their work, and the two men severed their professional relationship. The principal writer of Hancock's ATV series, Godfrey Harrison, had scripted the successful George Cole radio and television series A Life Of Bliss, and also Hancock's first regular television appearances on Fools Rush In (a segment of Kaleidoscope
Kaleidoscope (TV series)
Kaleidoscope was a British television programme, transmitted on the BBC Television Service from 1946 until 1953. A light entertainment show, it was one of the most popular programmes of the immediate post-war era....
) more than a decade earlier. Harrison had trouble meeting deadlines, so other writers assisted, including Terry Nation
Terry Nation
Terry Nation was a Welsh screenwriter and novelist.He is probably best known for creating the villainous Daleks in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who...
.
Coincidentally, the transmission of the series clashed in the early months of 1963 with the second series of Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
written by Hancock's former writers, Galton and Simpson. Critical comparisons did not favour Hancock's series. Around 1965 Hancock made a series of 11 TV adverts for the Egg Marketing Board. Hancock starred in the adverts with Patricia Hayes
Patricia Hayes
Patricia Lawlor Hayes, OBE was an English comedy actress.Hayes was born in Streatham, London. As a child Hayes attended Sacred Heart School in Wandsworth....
as Mrs Cravatte in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts.
Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, but by then alcoholism had affected his performances. After hosting two unsuccessful variety series for ABC Television
Associated British Corporation
Associated British Corporation was one of a number of commercial television companies established in the United Kingdom during the 1950s by cinema chain companies in an attempt to safeguard their business by becoming involved with television which was taking away their cinema audiences.In this...
, The Blackpool Show and Hancock's, he was contracted to make a 13-part series called Hancock Down Under for the Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
of Australian television. This was to be his first and only television series filmed in colour; however, after arriving in Australia in March 1968 he only completed three programmes.
Death
Hancock died by suicide, by overdose, in Sydney, on 24 June 1968. He was found dead in his Bellevue Hill apartment with an empty vodka bottle by his right hand and amphetamines by his left.In one of his suicide notes he wrote: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times". His ashes were brought back to the UK in an Air France hold-all by satirist Willie Rushton
Willie Rushton
William George Rushton, commonly known as Willie Rushton was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer who co-founded the Private Eye satirical magazine.- School and army :William George Rushton was born 18 August 1937 in the family home at Scarsdale Villas,...
and in reference to his fame and knowing love of cricket, his ashes travelled back in the first class cabin.
Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
commented in 1989: "Very difficult man to get on with. He used to drink excessively. You felt sorry for him. He ended up on his own. I thought, he's got rid of everybody else, he's going to get rid of himself and he did."
A memorial plaque marks the location of where Tony's and his mother's ashes were scattered at St Dunstan Church in Cranford Park (near Heathrow Airport).
Personal life
Hancock was rumored to be a closet homosexual. In June 1950, he married Cicely Romanis, a LanvinLanvin (clothing)
Lanvin is a high fashion house founded by Jeanne Lanvin.-History:Lanvin made such beautiful clothes for her daughter that they began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children...
model, after a brief courtship.
The situation became more complicated as Freddie Ross
Freddie Ross Hancock
Freddie Ross Hancock MBE is a British-born, New York-based entertainment industry marketing consultant and the founder of the East Coast branch of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts ....
(who worked as his publicist from 1954) became more involved in his life, eventually becoming his mistress. He divorced his first wife in 1965, and married Freddie in December of that year. This second marriage was short-lived. During these years Hancock was also involved with Joan Le Mesurier
Joan Le Mesurier
Joan Le Mesurier is an English actress, best known as the widow and biographer of the actor John Le Mesurier...
(née Malin), the new wife of actor John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier
John Le Mesurier was a BAFTA Award-winning English actor. He is most famous for his role as Sergeant Arthur Wilson in the popular 1970s BBC comedy Dad's Army.-Career:...
, Hancock's best friend and a regular supporting character-actor from his television series. Joan was later to describe the relationship in her book Lady Don't Fall Backwards, including the claim that her husband readily forgave the affair. If it had been anyone else, he said, he wouldn't have understood it, but with Tony Hancock, it made sense. In July 1966, Freddie took an overdose, but survived. Arriving in Blackpool to record an edition of his variety series, Hancock was met by pressmen asking about his wife's attempted suicide. The final dissolution of the marriage took place a few days ahead of Hancock's own suicide.
Cicely developed her own problems with alcohol and died from a fall in 1969, the year after the death of her former husband. Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry. She has been based in New York City for many years. She was the founder of, and is a prominent member of, the East Coast chapter of BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts
British Academy of Film and Television Arts
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts is a charity in the United Kingdom that hosts annual awards shows for excellence in film, television, television craft, video games and forms of animation.-Introduction:...
.
Legacy
Corporation Street, Birmingham
Corporation Street is a main shopping street in Birmingham city centre, England.It runs from the law courts at its northern end to the centre of New Street at its southern.- Planning :...
, Birmingham, a plaque on the house where he was born in Hall Green
Hall Green
Not to be confused with Hall Green, Wolverhampton or Hall Green, SandwellHall Green is an area and ward in south Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee...
, Birmingham and a plaque on the wall of the hotel in Bournemouth where he spent some of his early life.
In a 2002 poll, BBC radio listeners voted Hancock their favourite British comedian. Commenting on this poll, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson observed that modern-day creations such as Alan Partridge and David Brent owed much of their success to mimicking dominant features of Tony Hancock's character. "The thing they've all got in common is self-delusion," they remarked in a statement issued by the BBC. "They all think they're more intelligent than everyone else, more cultured, that people don't recognise their true greatness – self-delusion in every sense. And there's nothing people like better than failure." Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes for BBC 7, commented "Classic comedians such as Tony Hancock and the Goons are obviously still firm favourites with BBC radio listeners. Age doesn't seem to matter – if it's funny, it's funny." Dan Peat of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society said of the poll: "It's fantastic news. If he was alive he would have taken it one of two ways. He would probably have made some kind of dry crack, but in truth he would have been chuffed."
In a 2005 poll to find 'The Comedian's Comedian' Hancock was voted the twelfth greatest comedian by fellow comics and 'comedy insiders'.
The last eight or so years of Tony Hancock's life were the subject of a 1991 BBC 'Screen One' television movie, called Hancock, starring Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina
Alfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
. Another BBC drama - Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!
Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the English comic actor Kenneth Williams, based on Williams' own diaries...
(2006) - saw Martin Trenaman
Martin Trenaman
Martin Trenaman is an English comedy writer and actor, who has contributed to many modern comedy series.Winner of So You Think You're Funny? in 1994, Martin has gone on to write additional material for shows such as Head on Comedy, Lenny Henry in Pieces and Haywire, and comedians such as Harry...
play the role of Hancock opposite Michael Sheen
Michael Sheen
Michael Christopher Sheen, OBE , is a Welsh stage and screen actor. He trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, England and made his professional debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave in When She Danced at the Globe Theatre in 1991...
as Williams. Hancock's affair with Joan Le Mesurier was also dramatised in Hancock and Joan
Hancock and Joan
Hancock and Joan was a 2008 BBC Four biopic television film based on the affair between Joan Le Mesurier and the comedian Tony Hancock. It was first transmitted on 26 March 2008 as part of the Curse of Comedy season. Hancock was portrayed by Ken Stott, Joan by Maxine Peake and John by Alex...
on BBC Four
BBC Four
BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
and transmitted on 26 March 2008 as part of the Curse of Comedy season. Hancock was portrayed by Ken Stott
Ken Stott
Kenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott is a Scottish actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in television.-Early life:...
and Joan by Maxine Peake
Maxine Peake
Maxine Peake is an English stage, film and television actress known for playing Veronica in Channel 4's Manchester-based drama series Shameless, Twinkle in Victoria Wood's sitcom Dinnerladies, and, most recently, barrister Martha Costello in BBC legal drama Silk.-Early life:Peake is the second of...
.
The Welsh alternative rock band Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers
Manic Street Preachers are a Welsh alternative rock band, formed in 1986. They are James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire, Richey Edwards and Sean Moore. The band are part of the Cardiff music scene, and were at their most prominent during the 1990s...
named their 2007 album, Send Away the Tigers
Send Away the Tigers
- Album Charts :- Personnel :Manic Street Preachers*James Dean Bradfield – lead vocals, guitar, backing vocals*Sean Moore – drums, percussion*Nicky Wire – bass, backing vocalsAdditional personnel...
, after a phrase Hancock used to refer to "battling one's inner demons by getting drunk". The album opens with lines referring to Hancock's final days: "There’s no hope in the colonies / So catch yourself a lifeline / Things have gone wrong too many times / So catch yourself a slow boat to China".
Musician Pete Doherty
Pete Doherty
Peter Doherty is an English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist. He is best known musically for being co-frontman of The Libertines, which he reformed with Carl Barât in 2010. His other musical project is indie band Babyshambles...
is a fan of Hancock and entitled the first album by his band The Libertines
The Libertines
The Libertines were an English rock band, formed in London in 1997 by frontmen Carl Barât and Pete Doherty . The band, centred on the song-writing partnership of Barat and Doherty, also included John Hassall and Gary Powell for most of its recording career...
Up the Bracket
Up the Bracket
Up the Bracket is the debut album by British rock band The Libertines, released in October 2002. It reached #35 in the UK Albums Chart.The album was re-released on 8 September 2003 with an additional track, "What a Waster" and DVD featuring the promotional videos for the singles: "Up the Bracket",...
after one of Hancock's catch phrases ("Are you looking for a punch up the bracket?" / "I'll give you a punch up the bracket"). He also wrote a song called "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" in his honour. The title is the same as the book in the Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Missing Page". The Libertines mention him in their song "You're My Waterloo", stating, "But I’m not Tony Hancock baby" after the line "But you’re not Judy Garland". The opening track of Up the Bracket also features an approximation of a line from Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Poetry Society": "Lead pipes are fortune made".
Galton and Simpson
Galton and Simpson
Ray Galton OBE , and Alan Simpson OBE , are British scriptwriters who met in 1948 at a tuberculosis sanatorium, the Surrey county sanatorium near Godalming, on which the sitcom Get Well Soon was based...
were involved in a remake of six Hancock's Half Hour episodes starring Paul Merton
Paul Merton
Paul Merton is a British comedian, writer, actor and television presenter. Known for his improvisation skill, his humour is rooted in deadpan, surreal and sometimes dark comedy...
in 1996 and, although not critically acclaimed, these do represent the most up-to-date revisiting of Hancock's work, 28 years after his death.
In a bizarre plot twist in season two of the television show Psychoville
Psychoville
Psychoville is an award-winning British dark comedy television serial written by and starring The League of Gentlemen members Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. It debuted on BBC Two on 18 June 2009. Pemberton and Shearsmith each play numerous characters, with Dawn French and Jason Tompkins in...
(first broadcast in 2011), the character Oscar Lomax (played by Steve Pemberton
Steve Pemberton
Steve James Pemberton is an English actor, comedian, writer and performer, most famous as a member of The League of Gentlemen along with fellow performers Reece Shearsmith, Mark Gatiss and co-writer Jeremy Dyson.-Early life:...
) reveals himself to be, in fact, Tony Hancock.
Many of the best TV episodes of Hancock have now been adapted to the stage by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, with David Pibworth, and are available for production at www.classiccomedyscripts.co.uk
Recordings
Episodes (and anthologies) from the radio series were released on vinyl LP in the 1960s, as well as four re-makes of television scripts; an annual LP was issued of radio episodes (without the incidental music) between 1980 and 1984. Much of this material was also available on cassette in later years.The BBC issued CDs of the surviving seventy-four radio episodes in six box sets, one per series, with the sixth box containing several out-of-series specials. This was followed by the release of one large boxed set containing all the others in a special presentation case; while it includes no extra material, the larger box alone (without any CDs) still fetches high prices on online marketplaces like eBay
EBay
eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...
, where Hancock memorabilia remains a thriving industry. There have also been VHS video releases of the BBC TV series.
So far five Region 2 DVDs have been released:
- Hancock's Half Hour: Volume One contains the surviving episodes of the second and third series, including a Christmas special. No episodes of the first series are known to exist.
- Hancock's Half Hour: Volume Two contains the five surviving episodes from the fourth series.
- Hancock's Half Hour: Volume Three contains all ten episodes from the fifth series.
- Hancock's Half Hour: Volume Four contains all ten episodes from the sixth series.
- Hancock: The Best of Hancock (the first Hancock DVD released) features only five of the six episodes from the last series.
- Hancock: The DVD Box Set
Episodes of the radio series may often be heard on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4Extra.
Film appearances
- Orders Are OrdersOrders Are OrdersOrders Are Orders is a 1954 British comedy film directed by David Paltenghi, and featuring Peter Sellers, Sid James, Tony Hancock, Raymond Huntley, Donald Pleasence and Eric Sykes. It was a remake of the 1933 film Orders Is Orders.-Synopsis:...
(1954)
Films written by Galton and Simpson
- The Rebel (US title: Call Me Genius, 1961)
- The Punch and Judy ManThe Punch and Judy ManThe Punch and Judy Man is a British comedy film from 1963 directed by Jeremy Summers. It was Tony Hancock's second film in a starring role, following The Rebel .-Plot:...
(1962)
- Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying MachinesThose Magnificent Men in Their Flying MachinesThose Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is a 1965 British comedy film starring Stuart Whitman and directed and co-written by Ken Annakin...
(1965) - The Wrong BoxThe Wrong BoxThe Wrong Box is a British comedy film made by Salamander Film Productions and distributed by Columbia Pictures. It was produced and directed by Bryan Forbes from a screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Burt Shevelove, based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne.The cast includes a...
(1966)
Biographies
- David Nathan and Freddie Hancock Hancock, (1969 [1996]), William Kimber, BBC Consumer Publishing, ISBN 0-563-38761-0
- Roger Wilmut Tony Hancock: 'Artiste', A Tony Hancock Companion, 1978, Eyre Methuen - with full details of Hancock's stage, radio, TV and film appearances.
- Edward Joffe Hancock's Last Stand: The Series That Never Was, June 1998, foreword by June WhitfieldJune WhitfieldJune Rosemary Whitfield, CBE is an English actress, well known in the United Kingdom since the 1950s for roles in radio and television comedy series....
, Book Guild Ltd Publishing, ISBN 1-85776-316-5 - a fascinating insight into Hancock's final days, written by the man who found Hancock's body after his suicide.
- Cliff Goodwin When The Wind Changed: The Life And Death Of Tony Hancock, 2000, Arrow - an extended, comprehensive biography.
- John Fisher Tony Hancock: The Definitive Biography, 2008, Harper, ISBN 0007266774
Film biographies
- Omnibus: Hancock (1985) A BBC documentary which seriously looks at Hancock's life and work, and his legacy. With contributions by Beryl VertueBeryl VertueBeryl Vertue is an English television producer and media executive. She is founder and chairman of the independent television production company Hartswood Films....
, Galton & Simpson, Bill KerrBill KerrWilliam 'Bill' Kerr is an Australian film and television actor. He was born into a performing arts family in Cape Town, South Africa, but grew up in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia....
, and producers Dennis Main WilsonDennis Main WilsonDennis Main Wilson was a British producer of radio and television programmes, mainly for the BBC.-Biography:...
and Duncan WoodDuncan WoodDuncan Wood was a British comedy producer, director and writer. His best known achievements were to produce all of Tony Hancock's Half Hours for BBC TV during the late 1950s and early 1960s, and later, also with Hancock's former writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the classic British sitcom...
.
- Hancock (1991) A BBC1 'Screen One' production, starring Alfred MolinaAlfred MolinaAlfred Molina is a British-born American actor. He first came to public attention in the UK for his supporting role in the 1987 film Prick Up Your Ears...
- Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! is a 2006 BBC Four television play starring Michael Sheen as the English comic actor Kenneth Williams, based on Williams' own diaries...
(2006) A BBC FourBBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
drama about Kenneth WilliamsKenneth WilliamsKenneth Charles Williams was an English comic actor and comedian. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.-Life and career:Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February...
, featuring Martin TrenamanMartin TrenamanMartin Trenaman is an English comedy writer and actor, who has contributed to many modern comedy series.Winner of So You Think You're Funny? in 1994, Martin has gone on to write additional material for shows such as Head on Comedy, Lenny Henry in Pieces and Haywire, and comedians such as Harry...
as Hancock
- Hancock and Joan (2008) A BBC Four drama, starring Ken StottKen StottKenneth Campbell "Ken" Stott is a Scottish actor, particularly known in the United Kingdom for his many roles in television.-Early life:...
.
External links
- Tony Hancock Archives website
- Tony Hancock Appreciation Society
- The Original Tony Hancock website
- Tony Hancock profiled at British Classic Comedy
- Hancock in Birmingham
- Tony Hancock page from "BirminghamUK.com"
- Page about Hancock at his old school, Durlston Court
- Ray Galton and Alan Simpson; Official website
- Hancock's Half Hour radio show. Plays Wednesdays on Radio 4Extra (listen again available)
- The Cream of Philosophical Chat - Tony Hancock on the Radio
- Public Domain Hancock - TV and Radio - A comprehensive collection of Tony Hancock in the public domain pdcomedy.com