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The Best
of Hancock - Classics
from the television series
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by Ray
Galton & Alan Simpson
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Introduction
We first
met Tony Hancock in the stalls of the Paris Cinema in October 1951,
during rehearsals of a radio show starring Derek Roy, in which he was
appearing and to which we were contributing, albeit not the bit in which
he was appearing. Is that clear so far? We didn't say anything to him
and he didn't say anything to us. Thus began a partnership that lasted
until 1961 and encompassed 103 radio half hours, 65 television half
hours, 26 other assorted radio shows, 1 film, 2 stage shows and several
Workers' Playtimes, Variety Ahoys, Music Halls, etc. All in ten years.
Just think what we could have achieved had we spoken to each other that
afternoon! Let that be a lesson to all married couples - or married
triplets in this case. |
For
the historically minded (if you're not you can skip this bit and rejoin
us at the beginning of the next paragraph), the scripts collected here
were all written between 1959 and 1961, and have been issued on video
cassette prior to their being repeated on television in 1986, together
with eight other shows not included here. The BBC have only thirty-seven
of the original sixty-three television shows left in the archives and
we recently had the difficult task of selecting eighteen out of these
for the initial series of repeats. Certain old favourites, some of which
are in this collection, picked themselves, but in the end it was a toss-up
which to include, and there remain at least twelve tapes that will make
a very good series of repeats in the future. |
Welcome
back to those readers who skipped the preceding paragraph. Some of you
will find it interesting to have the scripts on your lap, or perhaps
on somebody else's lap, while playing the videos. In the privacy of
your own home you could pretend to be Duncan Wood, the director, and
call out instructions to the artists and see if they take any notice
of them. This is best done behind locked doors or when everybody else
has gone out. Or better still, you could join the local branch of the
Tony
Hancock Appreciation Society, where your condition would go
completely unnoticed. |
If
you do compare the scripts with the videos, you will find that the performances
are virtually word perfect, not as common as you might think in comedy
shows. On occasions, however, you will come across cuts in the text.
These were either made at the first read-through, during rehearsal,
or edited out after the performance, and always because of time. We
were generous writers. We always gave the BBC more than they paid for.
We cannot remember a script of ours that was written exactly to time.
We estimate that an average of three minutes per script had to be cut
out at Not a lot, you may think, but if you multiply that by the 168
Hancock's Half Hours written, you come up with the conclusion that the
equivalent of sixteen half hours have been written and never seen. A
statistic that still brings tears to the eyes of our agent. |
Finally,
we hope you will get many hours of enjoyment from these scripts. They're
fairly easy to read, you won't need to refer to a dictionary, at least
not as often as we had to whilst writing them. And if you do find yourself
getting bored half-way through, you can always go down to your public
library and borrow Lady
Don't Fall Backwards: You never know, their copy might have
the last page in it. |
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Ray Galton
& Alan Simpson
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There were four publications of this particular book. The 1st and 2nd publications being almost verbatim copies of each other. The only real differences being the spines and back covers, where the publishers name is different. They date from: 1986 to 1993, and are as follows:
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