Hancock's Half Hour is a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy series, broadcast from 1954 to 1961 and written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The radio series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James, Bill Kerr and, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, and Kenneth Williams. The television series also featured Sid James with regular appearances from John Le Mesurier, Hugh Lloyd, Warren Mitchell, Liz Fraser and Patricia Hayes. In the final television series, renamed simply Hancock, the supporting cast included established actors such as Jack Watling and Patrick Cargill.
Hancock played an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development. The radio version was produced by Dennis Main Wilson for most of its run. After Main Wilson departed for his television career, his role was taken by Tom Ronald. The television series was produced by Duncan Wood. The distinctive tuba-based theme tune was composed by Wally Stott.
Ten scripts (nine TV, one radio) were written but never recorded for a variety of reasons. The unused radio script for The Counterfeiter was finally recorded in 2019 with Kevin R. McNally as Tony Hancock.
Radio series
Development The radio series broke with the variety tradition which was then dominant in British radio comedy, highlighting a new genre: the sitcom or situation comedy. Instead of the traditional variety mix of sketches, guest stars and musical interludes, the show's humour derived from characters and situations developed in a half-hour storyline. This then relatively novel format, of what was in effect a single sketch each week lasting the entire half-hour (though in the radio version James and the others sometimes played different roles), was reflected in the show's title, which aptly described the series as Hancock's "half-hour".
Roger Wilmut, in his 1978 book about Tony Hancock as a performer, credits two British radio comedy shows, already running in 1954, with establishing an uninterrupted 30-minute sitcom format: A Life of Bliss, written by Godfrey Harrison and starring George Cole, and Life with the Lyons, a programme heavily based on the US tradition of sitcoms; he therefore dismisses the notion that Galton and Simpson invented the genre.
The comedy gradually shifted to observation, with a less strong emphasis on a narrative. The playlet "Look Back in Hunger" (spoofing John Osborne's Look Back in Anger) in the episode "The East Cheam Drama Festival" from the fifth series, showed that writers Galton and Simpson were in touch with developments in the British theatre, in the use of sighs and silent pauses, something Osborne's style had in common with the plays of Harold Pinter, whose work began to emerge towards the end of the series' run. In addition, the measured pacing of the episodes was unusual in an era of fast-talking radio comedians, such as Ted Ray, who typically used a machine-gun style of delivery to fill every single second of airtime.
Setting Hancock's character had various addresses, but by the third radio series he had arrived at 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. Sometimes this was portrayed as a council house, but occasionally there was a private landlord. In a few early episodes, Hancock owned the house, and later this became the norm. The episode "Cinderella Hancock" saw a reverse of the norm with Hancock a lodger in a house owned by Bill Kerr.
The house changed to accommodate the script: in some episodes, it appeared to be a two-bedroom terraced house, with Kerr as Hancock's lodger; but in series four and five, it had at least three bedrooms, as Miss Pugh was also resident in some episodes, while in others, she 'came round' each day. Railway Cuttings and East Cheam were fictitious, but Cheam is a real town in Surrey, today part of the London Borough of Sutton in Greater London. The whole area is smart and expensive, and by creating 'Railway Cuttings, East Cheam' Galton and Simpson created an address for a snob who wanted to live in a 'posh' area, but could only afford the 'cheap end'. In those days, recordings of the radio shows were not commercially available, so the audience had to rely entirely on memory for details of who lived where or who did what in the show.
Commissioning of series in the UK was then closer to American practice with extensive runs not unknown, but in this case, with only two writers, continuity was yet to develop, and details changed to suit each episode. The domestic situation varied, but Hancock was usually portrayed as a 'resting' or hopelessly down-at-heel actor and/or comedian (though some episodes showed him having runs of success, while others depict him pursuing professional careers as fantasies); James was always "on the fiddle" in some way; Kerr gradually became dim and virtually unemployable (although he had started out as a fast-talking American-style Australian); and Hancock's 'secretary', Miss Pugh, had such a loose job description that in one celebrated episode she had cooked the Sunday lunch.
At times, the scripts would include topical realities of British life, such as the reintroduction of petrol rationing from November 1956 to March 1957 (following the Suez Crisis) in 'The Stolen Petrol', and a strike by members of the trade union ASLEF (Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen) from 28 May to 14 June 1955 which involved a railway strike in 'The Rail Strike'. 'In-joke' references would occasionally be made to real-life events in a performer's life, such as Bill Kerr's appearance in the film "The Dam Busters".
Radio series cast Tony Hancock as Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock,Sommerlad, J. "Tony Hancock 50 years on: How the legendary British comedian paved the way for Alan Partridge and David Brent" The Independent, 25 June 2018. principal character. The comedy actor Sidney James (as he was then billed) played Sid (full name Sidney Balmoral James), a criminally-inclined confidant of Hancock, who usually succeeded in conning him each week. Bill Kerr appeared as Hancock's Australian lodger (full name William Montmorency Beaumont Kerr), a character who became noticeably dim-witted in the later shows. Often refers to Hancock as "Tub". Kenneth Williams, taking his first job in comedy, provided the funny voices for nearly all of the minor characters in the show each week. Williams left after the first recording session for the sixth series. Moira Lister appeared in the first series, before being replaced by Andrée Melly for the next two; both women played love interest for Hancock's character, in essentially 'straight' roles. In the fourth and fifth series Hattie Jacques provided comedy in the female role as the harridan Griselda Pugh, who was Hancock's secretary and Sid's occasional girlfriend. By this time, Hancock's difficulties with women had become part of the characterisation.
Episodes of the radio series were included in 20 underground radio stations of the BBC's Wartime Broadcasting Service (WTBS), designed to provide information and morale-boosting broadcasts for 100 days after a nuclear attack.
Radio series episodes Most of the radio episodes were recorded between one day and three weeks in advance of broadcast, except for Series 6 which was mostly recorded during a three-week period in June 1959 in order to avoid clashing with the recording of Series 5 of the television show.
Galton and Simpson never gave titles to any of their Hancock scripts, for radio or television; this was usually left to the girl who filed the scripts at their office, who gave them names that were a reminder of what the script was about. So when Roger Wilmut came to write his book Tony Hancock – Artiste (first published 1978) he took the liberty of inventing titles where necessary and these titles, a combination of the file names and Wilmut's own, have become the accepted ones ever since, with the approval of Galton and Simpson and the BBC.
The regular cast members generally played "themselves", in that the characters were called by the actor's real name (although the English actress Andrée Melly – sister of George – is introduced as a French character). However, there were exceptions:
Kenneth Williams played a series of unnamed characters referred to in the scripts—but not on air—as "Snide". He also played the very occasional roles of Edwardian Fred (a criminal associate of Sid's) and Hancock's Vicar, as well as various other characters (e.g. a judge). In the episode "The Emigrant" he is allowed to break the fourth wall and refer to himself as "that bloke with the funny voice". Hattie Jacques played Griselda Pugh, Hancock's secretary, with the exception of the episode "The East Cheam Drama Festival" where she played herself. Alan Simpson played an unnamed man in early episodes who listened patiently to Hancock's long-winded stories. His lines would frequently be restricted to simply "Yes", "Really?", "Mm-hmm", or "I see".
These performers are present in the series as indicated below.
Series 1 (1954–1955) 16 episodes, 2 November 1954 – 15 February 1955 Regular cast: Tony Hancock, Bill Kerr, Moira Lister, Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Alan Simpson (uncredited). Three of this cast (Kerr, Lister and James) were born in South Africa. Guest Stars: Gerald Campion (episode 1), Dora Bryan (episode 10), Paul Carpenter (episode 10), Brian Johnston (episode 12), Raymond Baxter (episode 12), Peter Sellers (episode 15).
The First Night Party The Diamond Ring † The Idol The Boxing Champion The Hancock Festival † The New Car The Department Store Santa † Christmas at Aldershot † The Christmas Eve Party † Cinderella Hancock A Trip To France The Monte Carlo Rally A House on the Cliff The Sheikh The Marriage Bureau The End of the Series
Episodes 2, 5, 7, 8 and 9 no longer exist. On 30 September 2022 it was announced that Richard Harrison of the Radio Circle had found the original recording of "The Marriage Bureau", and Keith Wickham, also of the Radio Circle, had restored it. The episode aired on BBC Radio 4 for the first time since 1955 on 18 October 2022. This episode was particularly significant given it featured the only Hancock guest appearance by Peter Sellers (doing a female impersonation).
In April 2014 the BBC started to re-record the lost episodes under the banner The Missing Hancocks, produced by Neil Pearson and Ed Morrish. The scripts for this five-episode run were selected by Galton and Simpson and recorded in their presence, with Kevin McNally taking the part of Tony Hancock. From the original first series they chose "The Hancock Festival", which aired in November 2014, the sixtieth anniversary of its first airing. The project would eventually re-record all the missing episodes.
"The Marriage Bureau", which was still missing at the time, was re-recorded in September 2015 and broadcast on 7 December 2015. "The Department Store Santa" was re-recorded on 3 September 2017 and broadcast in December 2018, opening the fourth series of The Missing Hancocks. On 24 September 2017 "Christmas at Aldershot" was re-recorded for broadcast on Christmas Day 2019 along with "The Christmas Eve Party" which was broadcast on 21 December 2021. "The Diamond Ring" was re-recorded on 11 January 2019 and broadcast (in keeping with its Guy Fawkes theme) on 5 November 2019.
One no longer extant episode (5) features the only Hancock guest appearance by Spike Milligan. This was included in the recreated episode of The Missing Hancocks.
Series 2 (1955) 12 episodes, 17 April – 2 July 1955 Regular cast: Harry Secombe (Episodes 1–4), Tony Hancock (Episodes 4–12), Bill Kerr, Sid James, Andrée Melly, Kenneth Williams, Alan Simpson (uncredited)