Hancock's Half Hour Collectibles: Volume 2: Volume 2
About this audiobook
A fascinating collection of rare and remastered radio & TV material starring Tony Hancock
This second treasury of rare archive material is spearheaded by four newly-restored radio episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour, all from 1956: ‘The New Secretary’, ‘Anna and the King of Siam’, ‘The Stolen Petrol’ and ‘The Expresso Bar’. Starring alongside Tony Hancock are Sid James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.
A number of fascinating extracts from the long-running 1950s variety show Calling All Forces feature Hancock performing alongside Charlie Chester and others, whilst the famous Budgerigar Sketch - with Hancock as the eponymous bird - is featured here from 1958’s Christmas Night With the Stars on BBC TV.
In What Happened to Hancock? from 1971, Philip Oakes reflects upon the complex personality of his friend, and elicits personal recollections from those who knew him, including Ralph Reader, Beryl Vertue, Sylvia Sims, Sid James, Duncan Wood, Michael Wale, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Heroes for a Time, from 1978, considers Hancock’s legacy ten years after his death, with contributions from Lyn Took, Barry Took, Arthur Askey and Billy Marsh. Freddie Ross Hancock recollects life as Tony’s second wife in a Woman’s Hour interview from 1979.
Barry Cryer introduces Six Characters in Search of an Answer: Tony Hancock from 2003 and examines the man behind the character, with the help of Galton & Simpson, Dennis Main Wilson and Richard Briers. Finally, in two editions of The Essay from 2015, Simon Heffer examines and compares the careers of both Tony Hancock and his stalwart co-star Sid James.
Marking the legacy of one of our greatest comedy entertainers, this collection is a must for fans of Tony Hancock and Hancock's Half Hour.
This release features a bonus PDF booklet alongside the audio, which looks at each item in the context of Hancock’s broadcasting career with insights into how many of these lost or rare items were discovered.
Ratings and reviews
About the author
Ray Galton and Alan Simpson met in a sanatorium in Surrey, where they were both being treated for TB. Ray Galton remembers noticing the six-foot-four Simpson and thinking he looked surprisingly large - ‘you expect everyone in a sanatorium to be thin and weedy, and he was the biggest guy I’d ever seen’. During two years in the same ward, they listened to comedy shows together and also wrote a series of their own, creating a radio room in a linen cupboard.
Having left the sanatorium within a few months of each other, they decided to get a professional opinion of their work and sent a sketch they had written called The Pirate Sketch to the BBC. They were asked to go in for an interview, and soon found themselves writing for the sketch show Happy Go Lucky. Over the next two years they continued to write sketches for a number of big names, before coming up with the idea for Hancock’s Half Hour. Although the BBC took some persuading, eventually the show was scheduled, initially for radio but later as a television series. A phenomenally successful ten years later, Galton and Simpson were themselves very well known names.
After Hancock’s Half Hour they wrote Comedy Playhouse for the BBC, out of which came their second huge television and radio hit, Steptoe & Son. In 1977 they wrote The Galton & Simpson Playhouse, produced by Yorkshire Television for ITV.
