Tony Hancock

Anthony John Hancock, best known as Tony Hancock (May 12, 1924 – June 24, 1968) was a major figure in British television and radio comedy in the 1950s and 1960s.

International Dreams and Introspection

Hancock also starred in the 1960 film The Rebel (a.k.a., Call Me Genius in the USA) where he plays the role of an office worker turned artist who meets international acclaim after moving to Paris, but only as the result of mistaken identity. The film was not well received in the United States; owing to a conflict with a contemporary series the film had to be renamed and this inflamed American critics. Hancock was later to dismiss the film as crude and its failure was a contributory factor in his disastrous break with his writers, Galton and Simpson, after the last television series for the BBC. This was famously the worst decision of his career.

Related Topics:
1960 - The Rebel - United States

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Hancock always dreamed of being a major international star, but tradition holds that he failed to realise how uniquely British his style of humour was — too uniquely British, that is, to have universal appeal. This was demonstrated by his second starring vehicle, The Punch and Judy Man (1962), in which he plays a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life. Sylvia Syms plays his nagging social climber of a wife, and John Le Mesurier plays a sand sculptor. The film's humour is bittersweet and understated and was perfectly tailored to a particular British audience of the time. The vast American entertainment industry, whose moguls were used to a more brash style of humour, dismissed it as slow-moving and dull. His BBC shows were, however, frequently broadcast in Australia and Canada.

Related Topics:
The Punch and Judy Man - 1962 - Sylvia Syms - John Le Mesurier - Australia - Canada

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In early 1960 Hancock appeared on the BBC's Face to Face, a half-hour in-depth interview programme conducted by former Labour MP John Freeman. Freeman asked Hancock many searching questions about his life and work. Hancock, who deeply admired his interviewer, often appeared uncomfortable with the questions — but answered them frankly and honestly. Hancock had always been highly self-critical, and it is often argued that this interview heightened this tendency, contributing to his later depression.

Related Topics:
1960 - Face to Face - John Freeman

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Hancock?s self-doubt led to self destructiveness — he slowly sacked all those who rose to stardom with him -Bill Kerr, then Sid James, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques, and finally his script writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. His reasoning was that to be truly international he had to ditch the catchphrases and become realistic. His classic example, once you had launched him on this subject, was Kenneth Williams. He argued that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone like Kenneth, who would come on with his well known oily' Good Evening' catchphrase. Hancock said the comedy suffered because people did not believe in the policeman, they know it was just Kenneth doing a funny voice.

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So he slowly got rid of all his friends. His final BBC TV series, was performed with ordinary actors playing the comedy parts, and by doing so, he created a new way of doing comedy. After the last BBC series he sacked Galton and Simpson. As compensation, the BBC gave them a series of one off comedy shows called 'Comedy Playhouse', of which one was called 'The Offer', becoming forerunner to the classic comedy Steptoe and Son, played (as Hancock would have approved) by two straight actors, Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett.

Related Topics:
Wilfrid Brambell - Harry H. Corbett

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To write 'The Punch and Judy Man', Hancock hired an up and coming writer called Philip Oakes, who moved in with Hancock to write. The depth to which the character of Anthony Hancock had merged with the person is clear in the film. The scene at the start of the where Tony and his wife eat breakfast in total silence is a direct observation of Tony in real life. When Hancock first read the scene, he looked at Phillip Oakes, and his only comment was 'you bastard...' Hancock knew that the film was going to be about him, in reality, and in fact the whole film is about Hancock?s memories of being a child in Bournemouth.

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Hancock read huge amounts, desperately trying to find out the 'why we are here' of life. He read large numbers of philosophers, classic novels and political books, barely understanding half that he read. He would sink into alcoholic depressions, decrying it all as pointless. Its possible that in his last alcoholic depth, he finally saw himself in a cosmic perspective, and it was too much for him. In his suicide note he wrote 'things just went wrong too many times'.

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