HANCOCK’S HALF HOUR COLLECTIBLES Notes to Accompany … Sleeve Notes/HHHC... · 2019. 1. 27. · 2 now commercially available to purchase. If we turn the clock back to 1976, we

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HANCOCK’S HALF HOUR COLLECTIBLES

Notes to Accompany Volume 4 All photographs copyright (C) BBC The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society is delighted to have given its support to the production of this new and unique series concerning the lost work of Tony Hancock. The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society The THAS was formed in 1976 just 8 years after Tony had died at the young age of 44. The Society was formed with the aim of promoting and preserving the work of Hancock and, whilst this remains the aim of the Society today, the environment in which the Society now operates is very different from that of 1976, with all surviving radio and TV episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour

Undated publicity shot of Tony Hancock.

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now commercially available to purchase. If we turn the clock back to 1976, we find a very different scenario. At the time, the BBC outsourced commercial releases to mainstream record labels such as Pye Records for Hancock’s Half Hour and Parlophone for The Goon Show. It wasn’t until 1967 that BBC records were created with the purpose of undertaking commercial releases of BBC programmes. At the time of the formation of the THAS in 1976, just two relatively complete radio episodes were available on the This is Hancock Long Player (LP) record released in 1960 (The Wild Man of the Woods (4/16 27 January 1957) and A Sunday Afternoon at Home (5/14 22 April 1958)). In addition, extracts from four radio shows were available on the LP Pieces of Hancock released in 1960 and a further nine extracts were included on the BBC records 1973 release Unique Hancock. Studio re-recordings of The Blood Donor (7/5) and The Radio Ham (7/3) were available on the Pye LP simply called Hancock (1961) whilst the Decca LP Its Hancock (1965) featured re-creations of The Missing Page (6/2) and The Reunion Party (6/4). The BBC released the first original TV soundtrack LP late in 1976. Called Hancock, this featured The Lift (T7/4 16 June 1961) and Twelve Angry Men (T5/4 16 October 1959). As can be seen, these LPs only provided commercial access to approximately six hours of material and this situation would not change until BBC Records started regular LP releases of Hancock’s Half Hour in 1980 with The Poetry Society (6/11 8 December 1959) and Sid’s Mystery Tours (6/9 24 November 1959). Whilst there was a dearth of commercially available material, in 1976 the BBC itself only held thirty-two Hancock’s Half Hour radio shows in its sound archive: one from Series 1, twelve from Series 4, ten from Series 5 and nine from Series 6 (Source: Tony Hancock: Artiste Roger Wilmut). However, fortunately, this was not the complete picture. A number of additional episodes survived, albeit in edited form, entirely due to the BBC issuing programmes to overseas radio stations under licence. These were issued by BBC Transcription Services in the form of LPs. It is worth considering these Transcription Services programmes here as it is often only the edited Transcription Services version of Hancock’s Half Hour which survives, particularly with regards to the first three series. Although the BBC has made extensive use of these transcription records over the years, their use has been significantly more widespread than just the BBC. Initially used as a sound source for the ‘talkies’ in the cinema, their use expanded and they were frequently used as a medium for record-ing auditions and interviews for radio stations and as a means of programme distribution between radio networks. BBC Transcription Services started life in the mid-1930s as The London Transcription Service fol-lowing the advent of The Empire Service. This was renamed The General Overseas Service in 1942 and eventually The World Service in 1988. BBC Transcription Services were formed to li-cence BBC Radio programmes to overseas broadcasters who were authorised to broadcast the programmes for a set period, usually 2 or 3 years. The programmes sold to overseas broadcast-ers in this way covered every part of the BBC’s output, including all types of music, drama, reli-gious and children’s programmes and, of course, comedy. Whilst the BBC wiped many broadcasts from its archive, BBC Transcription Services retained a copy and many of the surviving radio programmes from the 1940s onwards owe their survival to the fact that a Transcription Services copy was made.

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The library was originally housed in an old convent (St Hilda’s) at the back of the Maida Vale studi-os. Later, it relocated to Kensington House on the South side of Shepherd’s Bush Green in the early 1960s and subsequently moved to the South West wing of Bush House where it remained until 2012. The Transcription Services recordings have now been absorbed into the Corporation’s Sound Archive. The original releases were in the form of 12-inch 78rpm (revolutions per minute) discs. Each of these discs contained no more than 3 or 4 minutes per side and so a radio operator needed to use 8 or more discs for a half hour programme, with great skill needed so that the audience couldn’t hear the join! In order to facilitate this, consecutive parts of a programme were on different discs. This enabled the radio operator to cue the start of the next part of the programme from a different disc from the one being played. This means that part 1 of the programme was on side 1 of disc 1, part 2 on side 1 of disc 2, part 3 on side 2 of disc 1 and so on. A lot of skill in undertaking this cue-ing and cross fading was clearly required if the broadcast was to go smoothly with no gaps! By around 1947, the 78rpm discs were replaced with 16-inch discs running at 33 1/3rpm. These coarse groove discs each contained approximately 10 minutes per side, so the requirement to cross fade throughout an episode was still required, just not so frequently. The fact that the Varie-ty Bandbox episode with Tony Hancock survives was as a result of BBC Transcription Services recoding the episode on one of these 16-inch discs. An extract from this programme can be heard on Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Volume 1. The original Hancock’s Half Hour Transcription Services discs were 16-inch discs. Numbered 1 – 23, these discs featured episodes from the first 3 series of Hancock’s Half Hour. Typically BBC Transcription Services pressed 100 copies of each disc only, with instructions to the overseas ra-dio network to destroy the disc at the end of the licence period. Clearly many of the radio stations did not follow these instructions as evidenced by the number of discs that circulate in collectors’ markets!

BBC Transcription Services 10” disc and cue sheets (following page) for Hancock’s Half Hour - 40: The Junk Man. Expiry Date 26.2.62.

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The next batch of Hancock releases were numbered 24 – 73 and featured episodes from the 4th to the 6th series, typically edited to approximately 28 minutes. These releases were on 10-inch 33 1/3 rpm microgroove discs with 15 minutes per side. Again, each episode was contained on 2 sepa-rate discs to enable the radio operator to cue in the second half of the episode from a second disc. Each disc was accompanied by a cue sheet which provided the radio operator with details of the dialogue from the beginning and end of each side of the disc. This ensured that the operator knew when to cue in the second disc when playing the second half of the programme. The cue sheet contains precise timings to assist with achieving a smooth cross fade. Interestingly, the opening announcement was amended on the BBC Transcription Services discs to ‘The BBC Presents..’ from the original ‘We Present…’ announcement on the original programmes so that the origin of the show (i.e. the BBC) was clear to overseas audiences. This second batch of discs included the 4 episodes specifically re-recorded for BBC Transcription Services in 1959 to remove topical references or to provide overseas radio networks with more flexibility in using the episodes. The 13th Of The Series became The 13th Of The Month to enable the episode to be placed anywhere in a series. The original The New Secretary was sequentially the first to feature Hattie Jacques and her arrival fitted into the flow of the preceding and subse-quent episodes. For the BBC Transcription Services version, Hattie’s arrival was provided in flashback so that it could be placed anywhere in a series. The Election Candidate had Hancock standing for The East Cheam Liberals in the original version and this was amended to The Inde-pendent Party for the new version. The Bolshoi Ballet became The Ballet Visit and removed all ref-erence to The Bolshoi Ballet, which was visiting the UK at the time the original episode was broad-cast in 1956. All 4 of these episodes were broadcast in the UK in January 1959.

Tony and Sid each try to impress Silvano in this production shot from The Italian Maid, February 1959, with Tony Hancock, Marla Landi and Sid James

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This set of discs was reissued later as 12-inch 33 1/3rpm discs, each of which contained a full epi-sode per side. Although cue sheets were provided, there was no need for a cross-fade half way through the episode! The third batch of Hancock Transcription Services discs were numbered 1 – 28 and comprised 28 episodes from the 4th to the 6th series, all of which had been released in the 2nd batch. These re-leases were on 12-inch discs containing a full episode per side and were edited further to approxi-mately 26 ½ minutes to allow space for advertising etc. on the overseas radio stations. The final batch of Hancock releases were numbered 1 – 13 and were re-issues of the earlier 16-inch discs from the 1st to the 3rd series, this time edited to approximately 27 minutes. Full details of which radio episodes were included in each batch can be found on the THAS website: www.tonyhancock.org.uk. Despite the fact that a significant number of episodes survived within Transcription Services, public access to these was impossible and the number of radio episodes repeated on BBC radio was extremely limited before the advent of BBC Radio 7 in December 2002 (now BBC Radio 4 Extra). For example, there were just eleven episodes repeated in 1976, four in 1977, nine in 1978, reducing to three in 1979 with no further repeats until 1982. It is not surprising, therefore, that the focus of the THAS in its early years was the recovery and preservation of radio shows held in private collections, returning these to the BBC wherever possible. It should be noted that the quality of these recovered recordings ranged from near

Hancock is put to work by his Swiss master in this production shot from The Italian Maid, February 1959, with Tony Hancock and Frederick Schiller

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broadcast quality through to very poor quality. There are three surviving episodes where only poor quality recordings exist (How Hancock Won the War (3/16 1 February 1956), The Diet (3/8 7 December 1955) and Sid James’s Dad (4/3 28 October 1956)). Both The Diet and Sid James’s Dad have been officially released on CD. Despite being restored as far as possible, they remain poor quality recordings. As there is no possibility of improving the quality of these recordings further, the versions already released on CD are the best that can be achieved with the source material available. If anyone has good quality recordings of these episodes (or indeed, recordings of any of the missing episodes), the THAS would be pleased to hear from you. Over more recent years, the number of recoveries of recordings of Tony’s core work, Hancock’s Half Hour, has reduced as more gaps in the archive are filled. However, the THAS is convinced that more remains to be found. As recently as 2005, good quality off-air recordings of The Blackboard Jungle (3/6 23 November 1955) and the original version of The New Secretary (4/5 11 November 1956) were found. These emanated from Vic Rogers who had made the recordings for a work colleague who regularly missed shows because of the timing of his shifts. Both of these recordings featured in Volumes 1 and 2 of Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles. More recently, the THAS was notified of an item on eBay which incredibly resulted in the discovery of two lost TV soundtracks: The Horror Serial (T4/6 30 November 1959) (included in Vol.1 of Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles) and The Italian Maid (T4/7 6 February 1959) (contained in this set). Full details of the discovery of these episodes are contained below but these discoveries support the THAS’s optimism that further episodes are just waiting to be found. Even more incredibly, the previous archivist of the THAS, Tristan Brittain-Dissont, who sadly passed away in 2018, discovered two more lost recordings after the Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles series commenced. The first of these discoveries was a complete Star Bill from 1953. This is particularly significant as it is the only surviving complete programme from the series and, more importantly, the only one to feature Hancock as compere in a Galton & Simpson script. Two short extracts from a subsequent Star Bill episode from 1954 are included in Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 1. The second discovery was the National Radio Awards 1951 programme. Broadcast in March 1952, the programme contains a ten minute Educating Archie sketch including Tony as Archie’s tutor. Given the paucity of surviving Educating Archie material in general and the second series that Hancock appeared in, in particular (just one episode survives in the archive which is included on Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 1) this was a fantastic find. As has been mentioned, the THAS is convinced that there is more to be found! If any reader is aware of the location of any missing programmes featuring Tony or are unsure whether the programme that they have is missing, please contact the THAS. We will be pleased to review the recording that you have and advise whether this is a rare or lost recording. Detailed Programme Notes Hancock’s Half Hour: Fred’s Pie Stall (6/7) Featuring Bill Kerr, Sidney James, Wilfrid Babbage, Hugh Morton and Harry Towb First Broadcast BBC Light Programme, 10 November 1959 This episode is the seventh of the sixth series and, along with most of the other shows in this final radio series, utilised a team of guest actors in place of Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams in a drive to increase the level of realism. Over the years, Hancock’s Half Hour had reflected on individual events such as The Rail Strike

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episode (2/8 7 June 1955) which was broadcast during the National Rail strike in 1955, which ran for 17 days over wage increases and resulted in a national State of Emergency being declared. The Bolshoi Ballet episode (4/2 21 October 1956) reflected the very first visit of the eponymous Russian Ballet company. Their visit was to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and their performances of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, The Fountain of Bakhchisarai (a Russian ballet choreographed by Rostislav Zakharov to music by Boris Asafyev) Giselle and the first London performance of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ran from 2nd October 1956 for just a month. The episode portrayed a long queue for tickets and this reflected the reality of the situation, with ballet fans queuing outside the theatre for up to 72 hours to secure tickets. More generally, Hancock’s Half Hour also reflected on the changing face of Britain in these post war years. Whilst The Expresso Bar (4/10 16 December 1956) focused on the growth of a new form of coffee bar, which revolutionised London in the 1950s, Fred’s Pie Stall reflects on more widespread and fundamental changes to the High St in the 1950s. When asked why the Council wants to close down Fred’s Pie Stall, it’s clear it’s a drive from the Council to bring East Cheam up-to-date: Sid: Anyway, they’re trying to modernise the square. They’ve had the plans passed by Town and Country planning. Tony: What do they want to modernise it for, that’s half the charm of it. Sid: Because people aren’t shopping in the town anymore. They’re going to the other modern places. And it’s because this town has fallen behind the times. It is worth considering the background behind this significant change. Rationing continued well beyond the end of the Second World War with sugar, butter, cheese, margarine, cooking fat, bacon and meat rationing still in place in 1952. Whilst rationing of most of these ceased in 1952, sugar rationing remained until 1953 and meat rationing until 1954. Eating out was extremely rare for the average family and even then often all this comprised was a bag of potato crisps (plain or salted) at the local public house. The typical High Street would have included a range of independent shops (such as butchers, greengrocers, newsagents, tobacconists etc.) as well as those owned by multiple or co-operative retail chains. Typically, these shops all provided a counter service whereby the customer would purchase their goods from a counter on a face-to face basis from, for example, the greengrocer. This personal interaction provided shopping with a social element but also the customer knew that the person serving them had an expertise in the items that they were selling. All this was changing and, following the demise of rationing, there was a rapid growth in personal consumption with counter service shops increasingly competing with new ‘self-service’ stores and the very first supermarkets. Further, the 1950s saw the birth of the ‘teenager’ and this also had a significant influence on the look and feel of the High St. With greater affluence, easier access to motor cars and their ‘own’ music – rock and roll – retail changed in order to ‘serve’ this new generation of customers. In 2007, the Daily Mail interviewed a typical teenager of the period:

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Suddenly we were the most fashionable age group in the world. While once we'd been called war babies and raised on rationing and the Welfare State, overnight we were reclassified by advertis-ers as that bouncing new modern generation - teenagers.

In the late Fifties, the newspapers were full of us. We were, they said, uncouth, rebellious and sex mad, the clothes we wore were loud, and the raucous music we listened to was certain to lead us into something called "moral turpitude".

In addition to the growth of the coffee bars and the recognised social space that they became, the first burger bars also arrived from America. The first Wimpy Bar was opened in the UK in 1954 selling hamburgers and milkshakes and was extremely popular. This metamorphosis of the High Street can clearly be seen in Fred’s Pie Stall: Sid: Look at the old fashioned stuff down our High Street. People don’t want to see butchers’ shops with the meat hanging up outside these days. They want it under glass in refrigerators. Tony:……I don’t hold with all this wrapping stuff up and keeping it in refrigerators. Takes all the

Publicity shot for It’s That Man Again (ITMA) from September 1947 with Tommy Handley and Hugh Morton (who appeared in Fred’s Pie Stall).

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goodness out of it. I like to see ‘em hack it off and whack it on the scales, mate! Sid sums it all up: You can’t have a contemporary market place with a meat pie stall stuck in the middle of it. Fred’s Pie Stall and the fictional East Cheam Market Square acts as a microcosm of the fundamental changes taking place in the real world and which would ultimately result in the world of supermarkets that we see today. But it is more than this: Galton and Simpson have here provided another snapshot of broader societal changes taking place in the more affluent post war world. The increasing realism of Hancock’s Half Hour as the 1950s develop meant that these shows were reflecting the significant changes taking place outside of the realms of East Cheam back to the audience of the day. This contemporary audience would have related directly to the scenarios being lambasted which would only have heightened the comic impact even more than for a modern audience, where the contemporary situations are outside of our direct experience. This recording features some missing material that has not been heard in any of the previous commercial releases. Most notably, the sequence between Bill and Tony where Bill is asking Hancock to ‘guess’ what has happened, is significantly extended in this original version of the show. The timing of the dialogue is perfect and the lengthened sequence heightens the audience’s sense of anticipation so that the denouement when it occurs is even funnier than in the shortened version that we are used to hearing. Hancock’s Half Hour: The Italian Maid (T4/7) Featuring Sidney James, Marla Landi, John Vere, Harry Lane, Michael Stainton, James Bulloch, Elizabeth Gott, Jeanette Edwards, Betty Lloyd-Davies, Frederick Schiller and John Vyvyan. First Broadcast BBC TV, 6 February 1959, repeated, 3 May 1959 There were thirteen episodes in the fourth series of Hancock’s Half Hour on the television. Of these, nine were broadcast live, whilst four were pre-recorded (Ericson, The Viking, Underpaid or Grandad’s SOS, The Set That Failed and The New Nose). We know that many, if not all, of the programmes which were broadcast live were also recorded because a series of nine episodes was repeated with the repeats starting within a month after Series 4 had finished its original run. Given the fact that recordings had been made, it is disappointing, therefore, that of the original thirteen episodes, recordings of just five survive in the BBC Archive. However, this is not the end of the story. The THAS archive holds audio recordings of 5 more of the shows from this series, the source of which has long been forgotten. Unfortunately, the quality is so poor that the shows are virtually unlistenable to and a commercial release of most of these is untenable. A good quality audio recording of The Horror Serial was recovered in early 2016, and this is included in Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 1. Those mathematicians amongst you will know that this leaves two further episodes unaccounted for. The Servants (the last of the series) is currently lost and no recording survives although, interestingly, the THAS does hold a short private recording of Tony learning his lines for this episode in our archive. Until 2016, the remaining programme was also completely lost. However, early in 2016 a good quality recording was found and we are proud to present this recording of The Italian Maid from the fourth TV series of Hancock’s Half Hour for the very first time. It has not been heard since it was

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repeated in May 1959. This recording came from the same source as The Horror Serial. In early 2016, the THAS was alerted to an item on eBay. It comprised an old Ferrograph tape recorder and many reel-to-reel tapes, some of which purported to contain episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour. We contacted the seller — Tamsin Pearson — and asked to see more details of the tapes and their labels. Tamsin duly obliged and we received an email with about 30 photographs. We noticed one that read, simply, The Italian Maid. Further discussions with Tamsin revealed that the collection in question had been recorded by her late step-father, Birmingham-based Geoff Elliot. Sadly, Geoff died in 1999. His collection lay undisturbed for 17 years until Tamsin sought to find a better home for it. On acquiring the collection, we found a very good quality soundtrack of the show. This, along with The Horror Serial, is the first lost Hancock’s Half Hour from either radio or television to be unearthed since The Blackboard Jungle in 2005.

Throughout the television series, Hancock (in addition to Sid James) was supported by a regular group of actors who were affectionately known as The East Cheam Repertory Company. The Italian Maid is an important find, therefore, because it features a guest star, a rare occurrence in Hancock’s Half Hour. The guest star was Marla Landi, the Italian film actress. Marla starred in many films including Across the Bridge and The Hound of the Baskervilles in the 1950s and went on to present Play School on BBC Television in the 1960s and ultimately set up her own international wig business.

In this episode, Marla (in her role as Silvano), arrives at Hancock’s house as their new maid and Hancock and James are immediately in competition to win her affections, ensuring as they do so, that Silvano undertakes no work at all! It is the only Hancock’s Half Hour that develops into the realms of a farce and one can only imagine Tony’s facial reactions to the situations he finds himself in!

There are two sections which are entirely visual during the episode and just music can be heard on the audio during these sequences. Often filmed inserts were used to allow for a change of clothes during live broadcasts such as this one. To assist the listener, the stage directions from Galton and Simpson’s original script for these two sequences are reproduced below:

Sequence 1:

Silvano: I did not come from Italy to be manhandled. I’m going back to my room. And if I have any more trouble like this, I’m going back to Italy.

Tony (to Sid) I hope you’re satisfied. Why don’t you learn to control yourself, you hot blooded fool.

New Scene: Shot of Tony’s backyard, dead of night. The back door opens and Tony creeps out in a frilly shirt and a bandana round his head, carrying a mandolin. Then he sings Come Back to Sorrento accompanying himself on the mandolin. We then hear four or five voices shouting out to shut up. And a shower of boots hurtle down on him. He shields some off by using his mandolin as a cricket bat. He backs away shielding himself to the door.

CUE THUNDER

He gets to the door and tries the handle but it is locked. He rattles it. Then we hear thunder and see a flash of lightning. A rain sheet appears on screen. Tony huddles up in the doorway wet and thoroughly miserable.

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Hancock serenades Silvano with Come Back to Sorrento (above) and, with Sid James and John Vere, complete their application for a domestic help (below) in

these production shots from The Italian Maid, February 1959

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Sequence 2:

Silvano (to Tony): ..You must be worn out doing all this work.

Tony: Nonsense, I’m as strong as a horse, I like doing it. I enjoy it. I could go on forever.

Tony is on the floor scrubbing: Gets down to continue – has a pain in the back. Winces, then smiles weakly at Silvano and continues his scrubbing.

Film Sequence: Tony doing the washing. He has a galvanized bath tub and an old fashioned scrubbing board on which he is rubbing some sheets up and down, with a great double bar of fairy soap. He is exhausted. There is a large old-fashioned mangle of the sort that converts into a table. He takes the sheet over to the mangle and inserts it in between the rollers.

Night Club Scene: Sid, Silvano and Tony are seated at a table, all in evening dress. Tony is nodding off and Silvano and Sid are toasting each other in champagne and laughing and enjoying themselves. Tony suggests to Silvano they dance. She gets up, Tony rises and has a touch of lumbago, which is agonising. He subsides into his chair. Sid gets up and takes Silvano into his arms. They dance a bit by the table, cheek to cheek, then dance off out of the picture. Tony is a picture of gloom and pain, he yawns and nods off.

A production shot from The Italian Maid, February 1959, with Tony Hancock and Sid James

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Tony is in the kitchen with a huge pile of washing up. Bags of soapsuds in the sink. Silvano is standing watching him do it. She takes a tea towel to at least do the drying up, but he will have none of it. He gently takes the tea-towel from her with a smile and a shake of his head. Indicates that he will do it all. He turns back to the sink which is piled high with soap suds, so much that we can’t see any crockery or anything else. Tony feels in the suds and pulls out a plate. He dries it. Feels around in the suds again and, this time, pulls out the water tap, Throws it down in disgust.

Shot of Tony beating great carpets on a clothes line. He is beating away in a frenzy, knocking himself out. He pauses with exhaustion, then continues bashing it.

Golf Tee: The girl drives off. Sidney drives off. They walk off together with their clubs chatting happily. Then Tony drags himself onto the tee, dragging his golf bag behind him, plus fours, the full Bobby Locke gear. He is out on his feet, he puts the ball on the tee, takes a swing at the ball, misses it and the impetus swings him round and he walks off in the opposite direction to the other two.

Bobo Sigrist is mentioned in the script. Bobo was the young heiress to the fortunes of her father, Frederick Sigrist, the millionaire aviation pioneer who died in 1956. She had most recently been in the news for being found in contempt of court for failing to hand over her daughter to her estranged husband.

Extract from Calling All Forces Featuring Charlie Chester, Bill Kerr, Patricia Cutts and Paul Fenoulhet and the variety orchestra First Broadcast BBC Light Programme, 9 June 1952 Calling All Forces was a variety programme aimed at military personnel based around the UK and Germany. It was first broadcast on 3 December 1950 and ran through to 28 July 1952, a total of 87 editions in as many weeks. The show was written by Denis Goodwin and Bob Monkhouse, although Denis and Bob took a well-earned holiday towards the end of the run and up-and-coming scriptwriters Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote the last six shows. The extracts in this volume come from shows 80 and 81, so were the last two shows written by Goodwin and Monkhouse. As part of the research for this Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Series, the THAS thought that an edition of Calling All Forces written by Galton and Simpson might be held by the British Library. Alas, after further enquiries, this was not to be. The two programmes in this collection are, therefore, chronologically the last Calling All Forces to have survived. The sleeve notes of Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Volumes 1 – 3 have considered Calling All Forces from the point of view of the variety content of the show, the point of view of the writers, Goodwin and Monkhouse, and in the context of post war Forces entertainment; this information has not been repeated here. Instead, these notes consider the importance of the Guest Star of the week of these two shows in the context of Hancock’s career. In this first show, the Guest star was Bill Kerr. Bill was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 10th June 1922 to Australian travelling performing artists. He grew up in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales, Australia and was on the stage from a very early age. If a baby was required, his Mother

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used to take Bill on stage rather than using a model. Bill began working for Australian radio when he was about 10, and undertook child parts for the next few years whilst also appearing in a few films until the Second World War intervened. Kerr moved to the UK in 1947 and started his radio career for the BBC with appearances in Variety Bandbox, a variety programme aimed at Forces personnel. He was billed as ‘the boy from Wagga Wagga’ and, commenced his act with the words “I’m only here for four minutes”. Bill performed a pessimistic act imagining all sorts of disasters that had befallen him or that might happen to the audience! At the time Harry Secombe described his act as ‘very laconic’. A further example of Bill’s solo material can be heard on Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 1. Having served an apprenticeship on Variety Bandbox himself, Hancock first worked with Bill Kerr on the BBC Radio show Happy-Go-Lucky, which was first broadcast on 2 August 1951. Written as

Bill Kerr: BBC Publicity Shot for Hancock’s Half Hour, November 1954

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a vehicle for Derek Roy, it was filled with up-and-coming young talent. Tony Hancock, Bill Kerr and Graham Stark (whom Hancock knew from Gang Show days) appeared in self-contained sketch The Eager Beavers which was written by Australians Ralph Peterson and E. K. Smith. Unfortunately, the whole show was an unmitigated disaster and The Eager Beavers has often been cited as the worst element of the show. The producer, Roy Speer, collapsed during the recording of 28 October 1951 due to nervous exhaustion brought on by the show and he was replaced by Dennis Main Wilson. His first act was to fire the writers and engage Ray Galton and Alan Simpson to write the last six shows. This was their first major scriptwriting job having previously been contributing single jokes to bolster the earlier editions of the show. It was during a rehearsal of one of their sketches for this show that the historical first meeting between Tony and Galton and Simpson took place. Tony Hancock asked Galton and Simpson: ‘did you write that’ to which they said they had. He replied ‘very funny’. It was shortly after this that Hancock asked Ray and Alan to write a solo slot for him and their partnership began. But back to Happy-Go-Lucky and, due to contractual reasons, Dennis Main Wilson had been unable to fire the writers of the Eager Beavers sketch. There was one week that the script was so dire that Hancock asked if the sketch could be cancelled. Dennis Main Wilson managed to over-run the rest of the programme so the sketch had to be removed ‘for reasons of timing’. Contemporaneously with Happy-Go-Lucky, Hancock was also appearing as Tutor to Archie Andrews in Educating Archie (the only surviving episode of Hancock as Tutor is in Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 1). This was a significant success for Tony and ensured that his reputation was not tarnished by his appearances on Happy-Go-Lucky. The next time that Tony would work with Bill was in Hancock’s Half Hour. Ray and Alan saw Kerr as a ‘fast-talking American-type’ character, albeit from Australia, and in the early series this was certainly the role that he played. As the series progressed, his character developed into one of lower intelligence and the role of Hancock’s foil moved from Bill to Sid James. Richard Webber’s Fifty Years of Hancock’s Half Hour includes Bill’s thoughts on how he joined the show: Bill believes that it was while he was sharing a few drinks one evening with Tony Hancock, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson and Graham Stark that the writers decided to use him in the show. ‘We’d been somewhere in London, Berkeley Square I think, and I was regaling the boys with a couple of yarns about Australia. They were laughing and I think gave Ray and Alan a little dig to think they might use me’. It was Kerr’s ebullience more than his ability to make them laugh which convinced the writers. Bill appeared in all-but-one of the radio episodes. The only one he missed was the final one to be recorded – The Christmas Club Handout – which was recorded on the 6 December 1959 when Kerr was in Australia (the rest of the series was recorded in June 1959). Although Bill did not work with Hancock on the TV version of Hancock’s Half Hour, he did star alongside Sid James, Sidney Tafler and Liz Fraser in the first series of the Galton and Simpson penned Citizen James on BBC TV in 1960, the show being created for Sid after he had been dropped from Hancock’s Half Hour. The characters in this series were very much based on the "Sidney Balmoral James" and "Bill Kerr” roles they had played in Hancock’s Half Hour, although these characters changed when new writers were brought in for Series 2 and 3. At this time, Bill’s character was dropped. Bill went on to have a very successful film career, returning to Australia in 1979 to continue his film career in his homeland. Hancock and Kerr would not work together again.

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These extracts from Calling All Forces features Hancock’s ninth appearance with co-host Charlie Chester. The first sequence is surprising. Much has been made in the sleeve notes for previous volumes in this series of the fact that Hancock usually takes on the role of con-man trying to hoodwink Chester, the very opposite of his character in Hancock’s Half Hour where he is usually the recipient of a con devised by Sid James. However, in this sequence, it is Chester who takes on the role of a con-man! Hancock isn’t well and Chester offers him the Wonder Body-Building Course completely free due to Hancock’s condition. Hancock agrees, but when Chester loads Hancock up with more and more to carry, the only way for Hancock is down… into the cellar!. The second sequence is also the reverse of the usual approach. On this occasion it is Chester who brings along a girl, Patricia Cutts. He wants to talk over his school days with Patricia, ‘when they were at Roedean together – the best days of his life’. Not surprising as Roedean School is an independent day and boarding school for girls, which was founded in 1885 in Roedean Village, on the outskirts of Brighton, East Sussex. This section is also unusual in that it includes the rare occurrence of Tony joining in the final song. Patricia Cutts was a film actress of the period who had appeared at the time of this broadcast in The Adventures of PC49 (1949) and Your Witness (1950). Patricia later went on to have a television career with credits including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Perry Mason and Coronation Street. This section also includes a reference to Leslie Welch. Leslie made regular appearances on Calling All Forces and appeared as ‘The Memory Man’. He answered questions sent in by listeners on just about any sport. This was genuinely unrehearsed and Leslie’s memory of the minutiae of sporting facts was quite incredible. The next sequence includes Bill Kerr’s solo slot on the show, This time he introduces his act with a derivative of his usual catch-phrase: ‘I’m only here for four women’ which are his wife, mother-in-law and two daughters! Patter between Charlie and Bill follows. Charlie teaches Bill the art of courtship but Casanova Hancock arrives and thinks that he is in a better position to advise! Finally, rather than a traditional play, Kerr appears as a gangster in a spoof of the US gangster movie genre. The first gangster movie was released in 1927 and was called Underworld. This led to a number of gangster movies in the 1930s, most notably Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). These all featured the rise and eventual fall of an organised criminal. Following the end of the Second World War, there was a significant increase in interest in American culture in the UK and the gangster genre both in film and book form were popular. Pulp fiction authors Ben Sarto and Darcy Glinto’s gangster stories were the influence for Galton & Simpson’s fictional book Lady Don’t Fall Backwards (by Darcy Sarto – a combination of the two real life authors mentioned above) in the Hancock’s Half Hour TV episode The Missing Page. In this spoof, Bill says that he has pinched a trick from every Bogarde picture ever made. Dirk Bogarde was a well-known matinee idol and had already appeared in 14 films by the time this episode was broadcast.. His most recent films included his role as a hoodlum in The Blue Lamp and the role of an accidental murderer in Hunted. The sketch concludes with a new idea for the use of Nitrous Oxide (laughing gas)!

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Extract from Calling All Forces Featuring Charlie Chester, Harry Secombe, Lizbeth Kearnes and Stanley Black and the dance orchestra. First Broadcast BBC Light Programme, 16 June 1952 The second Calling All Forces show features Harry Secombe as guest star. Harry was born on 8 September 1921 to parents employed as a shop manageress and a butcher. The family were regular churchgoers and it was here that Harry first experienced acting at the age of 12. During the Second World War, Harry joined a concert party and developed a comedy stage act to entertain the troops.

Harry Secombe: BBC Publicity Shot for The Goon Show, February 1956

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Secombe joined the cast of the Windmill Theatre in 1946 where he performed a routine about how people shaved. The Windmill was best known for its nude tableaux (where the ladies were not permitted to move as required by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office) with the tableaux interspersed by comedians. Many of Britain’s post war comedians served an apprenticeship at the Windmill and Hancock was no exception. Hancock performed as part of a double act there in 1948 with Derek Scott (who would later write the theme music for Hancock’s ill-fated TV series for ITV in 1963 entitled Hancock). In The Italian Maid (T4/7 6 February 1959), also included in this collection, Hancock references his Windmill Career when he says: …the Windmill’s not the only place I’ve got my name outside I can tell you. The Daily Herald had this to say about Hancock’s Windmill act: Young comedian makes a hit performing his brilliant thumbnail impressions of a ‘dud’ concert party. By 1949, Harry and Tony were on the same bill at the Feldman Theatre, Blackpool. Harry recalls that he was doing his shaving act, whilst Tony was doing his Gaumont British News impressions. On the first night, Harry received news that his wife had given birth to their first daughter. They decided to celebrate but by the time they had both finished their performances, the pubs were shut and they ended up toasting the arrival of Harry’s daughter over rock salmon and Tizer on Blackpool promenade! Both Harry and Tony continued to develop their parallel radio careers with appearances on Variety Bandbox and, occasionally together, as in this edition of Calling All Forces. Harry also appeared on Educating Archie in Series 3 and 4 from 1952 which followed Tony’s tenure on the show in Series 2 in 1951. But Harry’s radio career had already taken off following the creation of The Goon Show which was first broadcast on 28 May 1951 and would run through to 1960. Starring Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine, the show was noted for its surreal humour and zany storylines. Harry’s singing career (he was a tenor) also took off during this period with numerous records released and a burgeoning stage career in musicals ensued. Tony’s career continued to grow during these years too, developing the character that would ultimately appear in Hancock’s Half Hour, which was first broadcast on 2 November 1954. However there were two more key dates where Hancock’s and Harry’s broadcast careers would meet. The first series of Hancock’s Half Hour on BBC Radio finished in February 1955 and the BBC were keen to build on its success with a second series to follow in April. But there was trouble brewing: Hancock was appearing in The Talk of the Town and the promoter of this show felt that Hancock appearing in another radio series so soon would be too much for him and a dispute arose. Eventually, agreement was reached and the series was scheduled to start in April 1955 but then, the day before the first show was due to be recorded, Hancock collapsed during the first house and left the theatre….for Rome!. The BBC had to decide whether to cancel the show but the producer of the show, Dennis Main Wilson, decided to contact Jimmy Grafton (whom he knew well from his time on The Goon Show) for help and, ultimately, it was agreed that Harry Secombe would stand in for Hancock. And so it was that for the first three episodes of the second series of Hancock’s Half Hour, Hancock did not appear. He eventually returned for the fourth episode in which he goes to Wales to ‘thank’ Harry for standing in for him. Harry makes an appearance towards the end of this

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episode. All of these episodes are lost but were re-made as part of the The Missing Hancocks series and featured Harry’s son, Andrew Secombe in the starring role. The final time Harry and Tony were in the same show together was in November 1966. Harry Secombe took on the role of chat show host in the ITV series Secombe and Friends and on 13 November 1966 Hancock appeared in a version of The Budgerigar Sketch. Jimmy Grafton, with permission from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, had adapted the sketch so that a ‘mate’ is introduced into the cage – played, of course, by Harry. This was the last time that Hancock donned the budgie outfit! The THAS discovered an audio recording of this performance many years ago and this is held in the Society’s archive. In concluding this review of Tony’s association with Harry Secombe, it is worth remembering that, in addition to Secombe’s appearance in the second series of Hancock’s Half Hour, Harry gets several mentions in the scripts of the series. In fact, both episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour in this volume contain references to Harry. In The Italian Maid, Hancock claims that he himself is a singing star – El Hancockio – the singing Englasi – this was before Harry Secombe. Similarly, in Fred’s Pie Stall, when arranging the entertainment, Hancock says: Then we’ll get young Elvis Dalrymple from the coffee house, on the guitar. Give him a couple of bob to forget skiffle for the night, play the old Neopolitan songs, you know, the Harry Secombe stuff. These references to Harry’s singing are a real testament to the success that Harry had achieved in a few short years with his singing career. These extracts from Calling All Forces feature Hancock’s tenth appearance with co-host Charlie Chester. The opening announcements for the show (not included in this collection) state that the show is an hour of variety for the services. The first sequence once again features Hancock and Chester with Chester in the role of con-man. This time Hancock has taken on the unlikely role of a life-guard…unlikely, because Hancock can’t swim. But Charlie comes up with a solution and Hancock gets himself into hot water! The second sequence features Lizbeth Kearnes. Lizbeth was a well-known actress of the day and had recently appeared in the Goon Show film Down Among the Z Men. At the time of this broadcast, she was appearing in Meet Mr. Callaghan at the Garrick Theatre, London. In this sequence, Hancock has been to see Meet Mr. Callaghan and now wants to meet Lizbeth. Meanwhile, Chester has advertised for a Secretary and Lizbeth has applied. In true farcical fashion, listeners will have to listen to see who becomes Secretary for whom! Following Harry Secombe’s solo spot, rather than the usual ‘play’ to finish the programme, Tony, Charlie and Harry each decide on the ideal holiday they would like to go on. After France and the North Pole for Charlie and Harry respectively, Hancock’s choice is a holiday camp. This final scene is set in a typical 1950s holiday camp made famous many years later in the BBC TV comedy series Hi-Di-Hi. This was modelled on the holiday camps known as Butlins, the first of which was opened in Skegness in 1936 and was quickly followed by Clacton in 1938. Work on a new holiday camp at Filey started in 1939, but this was stopped by the outbreak of the Second World War. The camp at Filey and future camps at Ayr, and Pwllheli were given over to military use. The camps were re-opened to holiday makers between 1945 and 1947 and this was probably the inspiration for the Hancock’s Half Hour episode, The Holiday Camp (2/5 17 May 1955) where Sid hires Hancock to run a holiday camp at a converted Army Camp on an artillery practice range!

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The Butlins camps were set up to provide affordable holidays for ordinary British families. Holidays to these camps were typified by a variety of "family fun activities" and entertainments with organisation a key element of the holiday. Hancock’s holiday camp is called The Quiet Comfort Holiday Camp and that’s exactly what he wants! But as soon as he arrives the organisation gets into full swing with a range of constant activities leaving Hancock more exhausted than when he arrived! Extract from National Radio Awards 1951 Introduced by Leslie Mitchell and featuring Peter Brough, Max Bygraves, Tony Hancock and Hattie Jacques First Broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, 2 March 1952 As mentioned in the introduction, the previous archivist of the THAS, Tristan Brittain-Dissont discovered two more lost Hancock recordings after the Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles series commenced. The first of these, presented here, is an extract from the National Radio Awards 1951 programme. Not surprisingly, given that this is an awards programme, it was never repeated so this is the first time that this show has been heard since 1952! It may seem strange to modern readers to hear of a radio awards show, but back in 1952, radio remained the prime home entertainment medium for most of the population. Television was still in its infancy. This awards show, hosted by Leslie Mitchell, showcased the outcome of a panel of ‘well-known people and two listeners’ who have met together over six months to agree the recipients of the awards for ‘outstanding radio personality’ and ‘most entertaining programme on sound radio during this Winter season’. The reference to ‘two listeners’ seems strange, but this is a quote from the opening sequence of the programme, so, presumably, just two listeners were selected to join the panel of ‘well known people’. The complete programme runs for an hour and features sketches from a number of well-known radio shows of the day with musical interludes. The Master of Ceremonies, Leslie Mitchell, introduces each of the sketches on the premise that he is undertaking listener research! He starts by trying to telephone a ‘typical British family’ and is put through to the cast of Life with the Lyons followed by the cast of Take It From Here. Next, Leslie asks to speak to a radio star and is put through to Educating Archie. Following Educating Archie, other guests include Bernard and Barbara Braden and Al Read plus a number of musical interludes. Included in this collection is the ten minute extract from the Educating Archie cast. Educating Archie ran for ten series from 1950 through to 1960. The programme starred ventriloquist Peter Brough and his naughty schoolboy dummy, Archie Andrews together with his tutor. Over the ten years that the series ran, this role was filled by a who’s who of comedy talent from the era. Tony Hancock appeared as the tutor in Series 2 (1951 – 1952), and was succeeded in this role by Harry Secombe, Benny Hill, James Robertson Justice, Bernard Bresslaw, Bruce Forsyth and Sid James amongst others. This sketch starts with Archie in class but quickly moves to a short sketch about slavery in the 15th

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Century, along the Barbary Coast. Featuring slaves Archimus and Maximus and dancing girl Fatima, the sketch features an interesting twist at the end. For readers not familiar with the radio show Take It From Here, Joy Nichols, Jimmy Edwards and Dick Bentley referenced at the end of the sketch were the cast of this show! For readers desperate to know who won each of the awards, the award for ‘most entertaining programme on sound radio’ went to Take It From Here and the ‘outstanding radio personality’ award went to Wilfrid Pickles (at the time of the award, presenter of the quiz show Have a Go!, which ran from 1946 to 1967).

Educating Archie: BBC Publicity Shot, November 1953, with Archie Andrews and Peter Brough

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Star Bill Featuring Geraldine McEwan, Graham Stark, Lizbeth Webb, David Hughes, Semprini, Ted Ray, The George Mitchell Glee Club and the Stanley Black Concert Orchestra First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme, 7 June 1953 The second of the recent discoveries is a complete episode of Star Bill. This first episode of the series was broadcast live, although a recording was made for a repeat on 13 June 1953. This show has not been heard since that date. This show is of particular significance because it is the only surviving complete show in which Hancock appears as a compere in a Galton and Simpson script. It showcases Ray and Alan’s approach to writing in these early years and there are also tantalizing glimpses of ideas that would later grow and be used in Hancock’s Half Hour. Further, the programme was broadcast at the end of Coronation week. The coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place on 2 June 1953 in Westminster Abbey and this programme was broadcast just 5 days later. The topical nature of many of the sketches gives this show significant added historical interest.

The Graham Stark Show: BBC Publicity Shot, June 1964 with Graham Stark

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Star Bill had grown out of Calling All Forces. Following the last Calling All Forces programme (where the last six were written by Ray and Alan), Forces All Star Bill commenced in the same day and time-slot the following week. The programme name changed to All-Star Bill and ultimately Star Bill. The programme presented here is the very first edition of the new Star Bill which ran for 2 series and 31 episodes. In common with its predecessors, Star Bill was a variety show and featured sketches from the regular cast interspersed with musical interludes. The show also featured a guest star of the week who also appeared in the final sketch. In this programme, the guest star is Ted Ray, who had previously been the compere of Calling All Forces before Charlie Chester and Tony Hancock took on a joint compering role. At the time of this edition of Star Bill, Ted Ray was famous for his radio show Ray’s A Laugh which ran from 1947 to 1961. The first sketch features Tony Hancock and Graham Stark in a wonderful trapeze act….on the radio! As The Two Gorgonzolas go through their act, commentary is provided by Robin Boyle, one of the many announcers used in Hancock’s Half Hour and who is profiled in the sleeve notes for Hancock’s Half Hour Collectibles Vol 3. Next we gain an understanding of how Hancock watched the coronation and clarity is provided as to how the crowds lining the route of the coronation procession were fed! The procession to the Coronation took a direct route from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey whilst the return procession followed a five mile route which took in Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, Pall Mall, Hyde Park Corner, Marble Arch, Oxford Circus and back to Buckingham Palace. We are treated to some commentary on the procession by eye witnesses, although all of them seem to miss something important! The guest star Ted Ray is introduced and this is followed by a sketch entitled Narriman Down to my House, Baby!, which is a Curtain Halfway Up Production!. Featuring Sheik Errol Ben Hancock, we learn how he managed to add a new wife to his harem….but with a difference. What is fascinating about this programme is that it is at a pivotal point in the development of Ray and Alan’s writing. Some aspects of the show point to the later situation comedy of Hancock’s Half Hour whilst the show is also balanced with more traditional variety fare. The last sketch of the programme is of the latter style whilst earlier sketches include such ideas as Hancock in a barrel (with this idea expanded on in The Idol (1/3 16 November 1954)) whilst the concept of contracts written under a 2d stamp in lemon juice is developed further in the radio episode The Bequest (2/3 2 November 1955). Overall, the discovery of this show fills an important gap in our archives and provides exciting evidence of the development of Ray and Alan’s writing during these formative years.

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Hancock’s Helpers Introduced by Russell Davies First Broadcast on BBC Radio 2, 2 November 2004 This programme was part of the 50th anniversary of Hancock’s Half Hour and was broadcast earlier the same day as Hancock’s Whole Evening. In this programme, the broadcaster and journalist Russell Davies looks at the on and off-air relationships between Tony and his ‘helpers’. In this context, Tony’s helpers are cast, producers and writers from Hancock’s early days with The Gang Shows, through his early radio career and, of course, Hancock’s Half Hour. The programme considers Tony’s acting technique and his fantastic timing and goes on to look at the car accident that resulted in Tony using cue cards when making The Blood Donor (7/5 23 June 1961) and the subsequent downturn in his career in the years that followed. It explores Tony’s passion to improve his learning and compares this to the failed and pompous daydreamer of his character in Hancock’s Half Hour. Most of all, it leaves the listener with a true sense of the regard that Tony was held in by his contemporaries and the willingness of all of them to see him succeed. Featuring archive and new interviews with Andree Melly, Sid James, Alan Simpson, Ray Galton, Ralph Reader, Warren Mitchell, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Dennis Main Wilson, Harry Towb, Hugh Lloyd and Alec Bregonzi, the programme also includes extracts from an interview with Tony Hancock from Radio Newsreel with R. Colley 2 March 1961, Star Bill (21 March 1954), A Sunday Afternoon at Home (5/14 22 April 1958) and The Elopement (6/6 3 November 1959). Great Lives: Tony Hancock Introduced by Pam Ayres First Broadcast BBC Radio 4, 13 January 2009 The first edition of Great Lives was broadcast in 2001 and, 45 series later, continues to this day. The programme invites a guest to nominate a person they feel should be awarded the title of ‘Great Life’. The show’s presenter and a recognised expert (such as biographer or family member) contribute to the discussion as to what makes the nominee truly deserving of the title ‘Great Life’. This programme is the 6th edition of the 17th series and in it Pam Ayres, the poet and comedian, nominates Tony Hancock for title ‘Great Life’. To aid in the discussion is the presenter Matthew Parris (political writer and broadcaster) and Tony Hancock’s biographer John Fisher, whose biography of Tony Hancock was published in October 2008, a couple of months before this programme was broadcast. Pam remembers Tony Hancock with warm affection and the story she tells of her memory of her mother helpless with laughter remains with the listener throughout this warm tribute. The show covers Hancock’s early life in Bournemouth and the impact the visiting thespians to his parents’ hotel had on Hancock. It briefly considers Hancock’s Gang Show years and goes on to look at Hancock’s Half Hour and the relentless work schedule that ensued. Hancock’s later years are also covered, if only briefly, and the discussion considers the impact on Tony of his ill-fated appearance on the TV interview Face to Face (7 February 1960) and how this impacted the course of his last few years. At the end of the programme, Pam returns to the impact Tony had on her Mum and fondly remembers Denis Norden’s apt quote that Tony’s legacy is ‘the echo of remembered laughter.’ The show features extracts from The New Nose (T4/4 16 January 1959), Face to Face (7 February

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1960) and The Blood Donor (T7/5 23 June 1961). Comedy Club Interviews: Paul Merton Featuring Paul Garner and Paul Merton First Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra 25 June 2018 and 28 June 2018 These three separate interviews were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra on the 50th anniversary of Tony’s death (first two interviews) with the final interview broadcast three days later. In the interviews, Paul Merton reflects on the development of both the Hancock character and the voice that Hancock used in his performances, noting its change into a more natural approach as Hancock’s Half Hour progressed. In addition, Merton ponders how Hancock would have managed in the modern world and reconsiders his own role in the re-creation of classic Galton and Simpson scripts (including some Hancock scripts) for the ITV Series, Paul Merton in Galton & Simpson’s…. Finally, remembering fondly his own recording of Hancock’s Half Hour on a reel to reel tape recorder at home in the 1970s, Paul confirms that Hancock ranks highly in his own list of all-time best comedians.

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson: BBC Publicity Shot, January 1963

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In the first two interviews, Paul introduces his own favourite Hancock’s Half Hour episodes which were each broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra immediately following the interviews. These were The Wild Man of the Woods (4/16 27 January 1957) and Sid’s Mystery Tours (6/9 24 November 1959). Hancock and Son Part 1 Presented by Harry Thompson First Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 27 December 1998 After Galton and Simpson finished writing their final BBC series for Hancock in 1961, Tom Sloan, Head of BBC Light Entertainment, made an incredible offer to Ray and Alan. He asked them to write ten one-off comedy shows for BBC television under the title of Comedy Playhouse. Ray and Alan were told they could do anything they wanted with the series, even star in it if they wanted. The only requirement was that it was to be called Comedy Playhouse. Ray and Alan, of course, embraced this unprecedented opportunity with open arms: one of the programmes in the first series was The Offer and this went on to spawn their second hit series Steptoe and Son. Many of the original Comedy Playhouse programmes are, unfortunately, currently lost. In 1998, the BBC decided to re-create four of Galton and Simpson’s Comedy Playhouse shows for the radio under the title of The Galton and Simpson Radio Playhouse. The four shows chosen were Clicquot et Fils (T1/1 15 December 1961), The Clerical Error (T2/5 5 April 1963) and The Offer (T1/4 5 January 1962) from the BBC’s Comedy Playhouse series and Naught for Thy Comfort from The Galton & Simpson Playhouse for ITV in 1977. Ahead of The Galton and Simpson Radio Playhouse, Radio 4 broadcast Hancock and Son. Broadcast as two 15 minute episodes, the programmes trace the history of Ray and Alan’s writing partnership from first beginnings through to Alan Simpson’s retirement from writing in 1978. This first programme provides details of how Ray and Alan met, covers their early career writing for many of the great comedy stars of the day and looks at the development of Hancock’s Half Hour. Ray and Alan’s approach to writing is also covered and this is considered alongside the development of the Hancock character. The programme is presented by Harry Thompson and includes contributions from Beryl Vertue, Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Barry Took and Maurice Gran (co-writer of Birds of a Feather, The New Statesman and Goodnight Sweetheart). Although this show only runs for 15 minutes, there are extracts from a number of shows: The Diary (4/12 30 December 1956) The Scandal Magazine (5/2 28 January 1956), The Blood Donor (T7/5 23 June 1961) and The Radio Ham (T7/3 9 June 1961) whilst from Steptoe and Son: The Desperate Hours (T7/7 3 April 1972). Hancock and Son Part 2 Presented by Harry Thompson First Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 31 December 1998 The second part of Hancock and Son covers the period from Comedy Playhouse, through Steptoe and Son and concludes with Alan Simpson retiring from writing in 1978. The programme considers the impact of Galton and Simpson’s then revolutionary idea of using actors rather than comedians in their comedies which are described as ‘one-act plays’. The show posits that this changed the face of sit-coms and led to a number of programmes in the 1960s where actors were used: Please Sir, Till Death Us Do Part, Dad’s Army and The Likely Lads are cited as examples.

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Further, the programme considers how Steptoe and Son was born and looks at the difference in approach adopted by the UK and USA comedy writers of the period. Once again, the programme is presented by Harry Thompson and includes contributions from Ray Galton, Alan Simpson, Maurice Gran, Barry Took and John Antrobus. There are extracts from a number of shows: The Desperate Hours (T7/7 3 April 1972), Come Dancing (T6/2 9 November 1970) and Is That Your Horse Outside (T2/7 14 February 1963), whilst from Hancock: The Blood Donor (T7/5 23 June 1961).

Briers On Hancock Introduced by Richard Briers First Broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 5 September 1984 Presented by Richard Briers, this programme is an affectionate and personal tribute to Tony Hancock. It is the story of Tony’s rise to fame during the 1940s and 1950s and his eventual decline in the 1960s. Briers postulates on the character of Hancock and sets out one of the key issues that Hancock faced: that of learning his lines. Hancock had always found learning lines difficult, which was why he was so ideally suited to radio where Tony always had the script in front of him. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson have said that Tony could pick up a radio script and give a perfect reading of the script at first read through: timing, pauses, intonation – everything perfect. When it came to television, however, Hancock had no option but to learn his lines. To assist him,

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson: BBC Publicity Shot, January 1963

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Hancock turned to new technology of the day – a reel to reel tape recorder. Onto this tape recorder Tony would record everyone else’s lines, leaving a space for his own lines. He would then play the tape and use the gaps to say his own lines until he remembered them. Many years ago, one of the THAS Members spoke to the landlord of The Brickmasters Arms, close to Tony’s home in Lingfield, who remembered that Tony could often be seen in the corner of the pub with his tape recorder. The THAS has been very fortunate to obtain a short sequence from two of Tony’s tapes that he used to learn his lines for The Servants (T4/13 27 March 1959), a lost TV episode, and The Government Inspector (BBC TV 9 February 1958). The volume of lines that Tony had to learn was considerable. Consider this: between April 1956 (his first TV show for ATV called The Tony Hancock Show) and December 1957 (the end of the third TV Hancock’s Half Hour series) Hancock had to learn the scripts, camera locations, stage direction etc. for 36 shows, all of which were broadcast live, with no opportunity for retakes (although retakes were often not undertaken even in the recorded shows due to the cost of doing so). During this same period, Hancock toured with The Tony Hancock Show at Manchester, Bristol, Birmingham and London (four weeks) plus a Combined Services Entertainment Show in West Germany and also recorded 20 radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour (the fourth radio series). In addition, Hancock played the part of George McWhirter Fotheringay in a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The Man Who Could Work Miracles.

As can be seen the pressure of work was immense during this period. The script for each TV show ran to 50 plus pages and, with 12 shows in Hancock’s Half Hour TV Series 3, that was 12 scripts to learn in as many weeks (although there was a 1 week break after the 7th episode)! Following a car accident, ahead of the recording of The Blood Donor (BBC TV 7/5 23 June 1961), Hancock did not have time to learn his lines and the BBC allowed him to read his lines from Teleprompters. For Hancock, it was a great relief not having to learn his lines.

It has often been said that after discovering Teleprompters on The Blood Donor, Tony never learnt his lines again, but that is not really the case. In fact Tony had used Teleprompters previously, for example in The Football Pools, recorded back on 23rd Nov 1959, in a sequence where he fanta-sises about his triumphs at Wembley Stadium in 1939. This episode was recorded in the immedi-ate aftermath of his step-father’s suicide and with a tight recording deadline, the use of Tele-prompters was entirely understandable.

Much of Tony's soliloquising at the beginning of The Radio Ham, recorded just two weeks before The Blood Donor, appears to be read off cue cards. In the episode recorded after The Blood Do-nor, The Succession, Son and Heir, Tony reads at least one long speech off a Teleprompter, but the fact he was wearing horned rimmed glasses for the scene rather hid that from the viewer. It would certainly have been less obvious on a typical 1960s TV than is on the huge screens of to-day. When Tony commenced recording his 1963 ATV Series, Hancock, he did try to learn his lines. Paula Burdon, who was Alan Tarrant’s P.A., (the director of the series) recalls listening to To-ny learn his lines. Roger Wilmut also asserts that Tony did learn the early scripts properly and viewing the episodes that appears to be the case. However, there is no doubt that as the series progressed, Teleprompters were used. Alan Tarrant tried to persuade Tony not to use them, but Tony insisted that no one could tell and that people like Jack Benny and Bob Hope used them. Essentially the director was faced with a choice of film with Teleprompters or not to film at all; given the money invested, it is clear why the former option was chosen.

Whatever the reasons, fundamentally, it was not about whether Tony was trying to learn his lines but whether he could remember them. Tony was under enormous pressure: in the middle of re-cording the ATV series: his marriage to Cicely had collapsed; he was drinking heavily; and he had taken on the extra work of being producer for the series, something he was ill suited to at the best of times.

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Actor Derek Nimmo, who appeared in The Night Out, the 10th of the 13 episodes to be recorded, was clear that Tony did not know his lines. It was said that by the end of the series there were more Teleprompters on the studio floor than TV cameras. That was probably said as a joke, but was, in all probability, close to the truth

The use of Teleprompters and cue cards (commonly referred to as 'idiot boards') had a detrimental effect on Tony's performance. Rather than be free to move about, he had to stay in a spot where he could read his lines and rather than his eyes reacting to other actors or events, his eyes would be drawn to wherever his next line was.

In later years, not only was Tony finding it increasingly difficult to learn his lines, but even if he had put the effort in to learning them, his alcoholism often meant he couldn't remember them. When he then demanded of directors and producers that he needed cue cards, they had little choice but to comply.

It is worth noting that Richard’s recollection of Hancock’s early life require some clarification, if not correction. Hancock was born in Birmingham on 23 June 1923 and moved to Bournemouth when he was three with his Mother Lily and Father Jack. The programme states that Lilly and Jack separated soon after the move to Bournemouth but, in fact, they remained together until Jack Hancock died of cancer on 11 August 1935; Tony was only 12 years of age. This show includes extensive interview extracts with Denis Norden, Dennis Main Wilson, Hugh Lloyd, John Freeman, Sid James and Bill Kerr and also contains extracts from The Impersonator (6/14 29 December 1959), The Old School Reunion (4/15 20 January 1957), The Blood Donor (T7/5 23 June 1961); Face to Face (BBC TV 7 February 1960) and The Poetry Society (7/11 8 December 1959). Extract from Round Midnight Roger Wilmut talks to Peter Clayton First Broadcast on BBC Radio 2, 19 October 1978 We have already discussed the operation of BBC Transcription Services since its formation and throughout the 1950s, with specific reference to Hancock’s Half Hour. However, the remit of Transcription Services was broader than just a collection of complete radio shows for overseas broadcast: over a period of many years, interviews and short factual sequences from radio shows were collected by Transcription Services in a format known as Magazine Units. These units comprised 12” vinyl Long Players (LP) with each LP containing 4 or 5 items per side, depending on the length of the items included. The contents of each LP were fully documented so that retrieval of any given interview / sequence etc. was easy. Unfortunately, during the 1970s much of this documentation was lost (although many of the LPs survived) and so the only way to determine the contents of each LP is to patiently play through them. This interview, previously unknown to Hancock fans, was sourced from a Magazine Unit LP. Extract from John Dunn Freddie Hancock talks to John Dunn First Broadcast on BBC Radio 2, 26 February 1986 This interview was also previously unknown to Hancock fans and, similarly to the previous interview, was a fantastic find on a Magazine Unit LP.

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Acknowledgements The THAS would like to offer its sincere thanks to those who, over our long history, worked to find and save material featuring Hancock. This collection would not have been possible without the dedicated work of countless members of our society and its friends. Sadly, many of these names and their contributions have not been properly recorded, as is the nature of an amateur organisation such as ours. Many have passed away. We owe a great debt to all of them. Ted Kendall, one of the world’s leading sound engineers, has restored and remastered the material in this collection. However, Ted’s contribution to the preservation of Hancock’s Half Hour comprises much more than this. Over the decades he has discovered missing Hancock material from myriad sources that, otherwise, would have been lost forever. He has also been the saviour of significant private collections of sound radio that risked dispersal

Hancock returns from his shopping, exhausted in this production shot from The Italian Maid, February 1959, with, James Bulloch, Tony Hancock, Michael

Stainton and Sid James,

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or destruction on their owner’s passing. His contribution to unearthing and preserving priceless broadcast material from many genres – not just related to Hancock – constitutes a significant contribution to the history of broadcast media that has been sorely unappreciated. Further information can be found at www.tedkendall.com. Tristan Brittain-Dissont, the previous archivist of the THAS, also made a significant contribution to the discovery and preservation of lost Hancock material including not only sound and video archives, but also press cuttings, magazine articles, theatre programmes and much, much more. The inclusion of the Hancock’s Half Hour episode The Italian Maid, Star Bill and the National Radio Awards in this volume are dedicated to his memory. With thanks to Tom Dommett for additional material for Briers on Hancock. We would also like to acknowledge the invaluable contributions of Malcolm Chapman, Vic Rogers, Tamsin Pearson and Julie Warren, Martin Gibbons Tony Hancock Appreciation Society www.tonyhancock.org.uk Facebook: The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society Twitter: @TonyHancockAS Technical notes by Ted Kendall Fred's Pie Stall comes from the same source as the episodes in Volume 3, these being off-air recordings of domestic VHF repeats broadcast in 1964. The technical quality is substantially better than that of the previous issue, taken from a BBC TS disc, and it is now at the original transmitted length. The Italian Maid is from the same source as The Horror Serial in Volume 1. The quality is as good as can be expected of an off-air TV sound recording at this time - few TV sound tuners were available, and it was not straightforward to make a direct connection to a domestic set for recording purposes, as their live chassis design carried the risk of electric shock and damage to equipment. This recording was probably taken from an isolating transformer across the TV set's loudspeaker - better than a microphone, but not ideal, given the poor quality of the sound circuits on domestic sets of the day. I've done what I can to clean it up. Both the Star Bill and the National Radio Awards programmes come from the same collection as the Calling All Forces material, but I was unable to secure access to the original tapes. I have, in the circumstances, done my level best to make the quality of these important items as good as possible, but some deficiencies, notably fluctuating treble, remain, which are irremediable without re-transferring from the original tapes. The rest of the material in this volume was sourced from BBC Sound Archives or Transcription Service masters, with restoration as required.