Product Description

Hancock's Half Hour was one of the most successful series ever made, and it created an international star. With his impeccable timing and brilliantly subtle shifts in intonation, Tony Hancock could create sound pictures that bore the unmistakable hallmark of a genius. The BBC broadcast eighty hours of Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961. Now BBC Radio Collection is publishing, in chronological order, all 74 surviving radio shows from the BBC Archives. An accompanying booklet contains an introduction from the show's writers Galton & Simpson, a history of the show with contemporary press extracts and photos, episode synopses for all shows including the missing ones, and biographies of the cast. Seventeen shows remain from the fourth series, published here on nine CDs in a luxury box set. From Hancock connoisseur to first-time fan, this completely comprehensive collection makes for essential - and fantastically funny - listening. A worthy tribute to the comic genius of Tony Hancock.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #111111 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-04
• Released on: 2002-03-04
• Number of discs: 9
• Format: Audiobook
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 9
• Binding: Audio CD

Amazon.co.uk Review
When Ray Galton and Alan Simpson created Hancock's Half Hour--their first big hit before Steptoe and Son--they needed a supporting cast, and their choices were inspired. Sid James became the quintessential shifty crook, Bill Kerr played Tony Hancock's best friend while Moira Lister became his girlfriend, and as Kenneth Williams intoned a variety of authority-voices--police, magistrates, etc.--another comic star was born. Out of the 16 original programmes from the period under review, the BBC managed to lose six--culpable carelessness--but among the extant 10 there are outright gems, some of which will be unfamiliar even to fans, and many of which would today be banned as hopelessly un-PC. Viz Hancock's cheery greeting: "Morning Charlie. Working? Oh, of course you don't need to, with 28 children!" Or his observation--of some sluggish British workmen building a house--that he's glad they've been provided with shovels complete with arm-rests. Asked for his own address, he replies "I've just moved. They pulled down my house to build a slum". Relayed cold, such comments may not even raise a smile: Hancock's magic was all in the telling, and in the momentum he built up, as in his Monte Carlo rally programme, in which signposts were turned round and bridges blown up. One of the nicest sketches evolves out of him being left to do the housework like Cinderella, while everyone else troops off to the ball. When he died, a victim of depression, in Australia in 1968, Britain lost something irreplaceable: this five-CD set, with its accompanying booklet, makes a splendid memento. The next batch of releases is eagerly awaited. --Betty Tadman

Customer Reviews

H-H-Hilarious.
The latest instalment of BBC's excavation of the archives to unearth the gems of their classic comedy wardrobe brings us Hancock's Half Hour Series 3. Eight of the original 20 broadcasts from the third series have survived, lavishly packaged over 4 cd's including brief synopses for all the shows transmitted originally between the 1955 and 1956 season and notes from the writers Galton and Simpson.

This is the last series to feature the object of Hancock's desires Andree Melly, who apears here miraculously 'elisa doolittled'replete with rounded vowels. The 'snide' character of Kenneth Williams now firmly established this series is blessed with some hysterical moments including what at the time must have been a coup for the show, the guest appearance of cricketeers Colin Cowdrey, Godfrey Evans and Frank Tyson.

Splendour at Hancock's egotistical buffoonery as a foolhardy dupe for Sid James'dastardly manipulation and Kenneth Williams range of characters in this acknowledged classic situation comedy.

Easy to see why then that at it's peak this show caused landlords at public houses up and down the country to change their opening times when broadcast on the airwaves.

Featured here are three shows previously included on the cassette collections augmented by five 'new' shows seeing Hancock in all manner of scrapes. Prized moments here are 'The Jewel Robbery'where Hancock decides it's time to change his car and buys a Rolls Royce ("for a man who doesn't like mentioning money I think you've forced yourself admirably") and ends up finding himself unwittingly involved in a car chase. In 'The Pet Dog' Hancock becoming the proud owner of a new puppy "there's only one thing for it Bill, move the car out of the garage....and into the kennel"

On the evidence of this little treasure, Series 4 is eagerly awaited with b-b-baited breathe.

The golden age begins
The true "golden age of Hancock's Half Hour" began during the fourth series. The catalyst was the arrival, in episode five, of Hattie Jacques. From here on, both writing and performing scaled and sustained new heights.
This nine-CD box-set contains the surviving seventeen (of twenty) episodes originally broadcast between October 1956 and February 1957.
Given the high quality of this material, it is not surprising that most of it has been available before. In fact, eleven of the seventeen episodes are contained in the ten-volume audio-cassette series issued between 1988 and 1998. If you already own the cassettes, this package is a rather expensive way of obtaining just six new episodes, only two of which ("The Income Tax Demand" and "Michaelangelo 'Ancock") are truly memorable.
For those not owning the cassettes, however, this set is well worth buying, and an ideal way to start a collection of one of the all-time greats of classic radio comedy.

Hancock's Last Half Hour
Comedy at it's finest, Hancock passes the finish line with classic shows such as 'The Poetry Society' (my fave) and 'The Smugglers'.

These shows may have been recorded nearly 50 years ago but Tone's consistent and hilarious portrayal of pomposity, arrogance, stupidity, and wonderfully misplaced patriotism are a joy to behold, and gives this collection a timeless quality (unless you think these traits are no longer with us in the 21st century).

With a regular cast of Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques, and Bill Kerr, this is ensemble comedy that is as good as Seinfeld, and there can be no higher praise than that.