Hancock's Last Stand - The Series That Never Was

A brief review by John Sealey

Hancock's Last Stand is a unique insight into Tony Hancock's terminal decline brought on by his chronic alcoholism. Eddie Joffe has written a heart-rending account of how a comedian admired by his peers and public alike, a man who emptied streets when his programme Hancock's Half Hour was on the box, came to rely on alcohol and drugs to give him the Dutch courage to perform in front of the cameras.
      This reliance eventually alienated his friends, his writers and even his wives and girlfriends, with one very important exception: his mother, to whom he was utterly devoted.
      Producers who wanted to work with him eventually gave up as he began to lose the ability to deliver the majestic sense of timing and incredible range of facial expressions that were his genius.
      Hancock's career was at rock bottom when Eddie Joffe, an award winning writer/director - and an active member of BECTU's producers and directors group - was chosen to direct Hancock in a TV series in Australia in 1968. This was not so much a comeback as a last chance for Hancock, a chance he never managed to grab hold of.
      Little is known about this agonising period and Joffe tells of the friendship between them, the flashes of comic genius which shone through when Hancock was sober and the depths of depression when he wasn't. Joffe also chronicles the technical and financial battles surrounding a major filmed colour television series being shot in Australia for the first time on the then state of the art E-CAM (blimped 35mm Arriflex cameras electronically locked to enable the director to shoot continuously cutting from one camera to the next).
      Eddie Joffe sets the record straight about the rumours and misconceptions surrounding Hancock's suicide.
      The book will appeal to the millions of Hancock fans and aficionados of comic acting and to those interested in the history of television and its technology.
John Sealey, Stage Screen & Radio Magazine, March 2000

There were two publications of this particular book. They date from: 1998 to 1999, and are as follows:

1st, The Book Guild Ltd, hardback, published in 1998

2nd, Methuen Publishing Ltd, paperback, published in 1999

This book can be found, but you may have to look harder, it won't just fall into your lap!

 

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