The Straight Man - My Life In Comedy

by Nicholas Parsons

It is not often that the straight man tells his tale; only a few of them are known at all. Nicholas Parsons is the finest straight man in the business of comedy, and he has played that role with many of the greats, on television and on radio. In this book he tells the story of his career, which began with impersonations done as an apprentice in a Glasgow engineering works and led to the dazzling lights of the West End.

After years in repertory theatre, in such plays as Charley's Aunt, a stint as resident comedian at the legendary Windmill Theatre in the 1950s, and appearances in cabaret and revues, Nicholas Parsons began to work with the then unknown comedian Arthur Haynes. In a partnership which stretched over ten years they appeared in comedy sketches on television which remain classics today. He tells candidly and humorously of working with this difficult man, and how their teamwork extended the bounds of comedy. And he tells of working with many other stars: Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Benny Hill and Rik Mayall, with whom he starred in the Comic Strip film Mr Jolly Lives Next Door.

Maroon boards / Silver inscribed spine

40 Years Of British Television

by Jane Harbord & Jeff Wright

with an Introduction by Barry Took

Everyone has their favourite TV memories, and they are all here in this fact-filled almanac covering the last four decades in British television. Features include first and last nights of popular shows, original programme details from TV Times and Radio Times, interesting snippets about the stars and TV news of the year. For each year, there are month-by-month viewing figures for the top-rated programmes. The only book to include original TV ratings from the 1950s.

Pictorial laminated boards / With dust jacket

Sid James - A Biography

by Cliff Goodwin

Sid James is the first biography of one of Britain's best loved actors, it tells the story of his early years and of how, despite an obsession with gambling and women, he earned universal respect and loyalty from his fellow actors.
Yet no star worked harder to deny the first half of his life and keep it secret from his closest family and friends. Even his English children knew nothing of their half-brothers and sisters.
Sid James is best known for his radio and television appearances in Hancock's Half Hour, his 19 Carry On films and his long-running television comedy, Bless This House. He never refused a film part - 81 films in 13 years - preferring to work as a supporting actor than an out-of-work star. Sid James was also an award-winning and Energetic stage actor. It was during the opening minutes of The Mating Season at the Empire Theatre, Sunderland, he suffered a second and fatal heart attack.
Almost two decades after his death Sid James is still a star - for the first time his fans can discover the amazing truth behind the legend.

Black boards / Silver inscribed spine

40 Years Of British Television - Fully Updated New Edition

by Jane Harbord & Jeff Wright

Everyone has their own favourite TV memories from the last forty years: it could be Saturday nights watching The Generation Game and Doctor Who, the night the king came to dinner in Upstairs Downstairs, the first ever episode of Z Cars or the last ever episode of Crossroads. Whether you were a fan of Dixon of Dock Green or The Sweeney, you will find that Forty Years of British Television is filled with interesting facts and fascinating insights into the history of television since ITV began broadcasting in 1955.

TV ratings for every year: programmes which topped the charts listed month by month. Stories that made the headlines. First nights for top shows - the triumphs and the disasters. TV teasers - questions to tax the brain and bring the memories flooding back.

Sid James

A Biography

by Cliff Goodwin

Christmas Day, 1946. A 33-year-old South African actor and his wife arrive in England. Within days he lands, his first film part; three years later he is starring in the West End; by 1954 Sid James joins Hancock's Half Hour and shoots to international stardom.

For the first time Sid James reveals the secret life behind the rumpled face and the dirty laugh - secrets even his closest show business friends never knew.

A fellow actor once described Sid James as a 'scheming, gambling mad, heartless skin-flint who made Scrooge look like a public benefactor and who had only one thing on his mind. . .SEX!'

This is the harder to find paperback publication of the book above, here

The Golden Years - 1959

The Way It Was - The Way We Were

Edited by David Sandison

May 1959 (page 23) - Hancock Starts Last Series Of Hancock’s Half Hour

Britain amended its evening social diaries again this month as the fourth annual series of Hancock’s Half Hour - for the past three years the BBC’s most popular programme - returned to capture its top spot in the national TV ratings.
  Starring former radio star Tony Hancock and regular side-kick Sid James - destined to find even wider fame as lynchpin of the Carry On films - this would turn out to be the last series the comedian would make with James. When he returned in 1961 the show would be simply retitled Hancock and produce such comedy classics as the timeless Blood Donor and Radio Ham episodes. Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock’s Half Hour developed the pompous loser character who lived in genteel poverty and a haze of grandiose - and inevitably frustrated - schemes in the fictional South London suburb of East Cheam. At his peek, Anthony Aloysius St. John Hancock decimated British pub takings on the nights his misadventures were broadcast.

Pictorial laminated boards / With dust jacket

The Golden Years - 1968

The Way It Was - The Way We Were

Edited by David Sandison

June 24, 1968 (page 29) - Tears For Hancock, Classic Clown

The British comedian Tony Hancock, whose career had be dogged by setbacks during the past few years, committed suicide today. Trying to stage a comeback on Australian television, he took his own life in a hotel room in Sydney (not entirely true - ED) - a sad end for a man who could lay claim to having been one of Britain’s most popular and best-loved comedians.
  The peak of the 44 year old Hancock’s achievement was undoubtedly his 1950s radio programme Hancock’s Half Hour which was later to cross over to television, where it became one of Britain’s most popular series. His character, a lugubrious, snobby and pretentious bungler, made Hancock a true household name and the favourite of millions.
  However, subsequent attempts to go it alone - including two poorly-received feature films, The Rebel and The Punch And Judy Man - flopped badly to begin a downward spiral fuelled by alcoholism, depression and self-doubt. This was sadly misplaced, as continued sales of classic Hancock radio and television episodes to younger generation eloquently prove.

Pictorial laminated boards / With dust jacket

The Ultimate TV Guide

(also published as TV Heaven)

by Jon E. Lewis and Penny Stempel

Thousands of nuggets of trivia; thousands of TV programmes covered from 1946 to the present . . . At the flick of a page, look up the programme, read a critical overview, peruse the cast. You can, for greater viewing safety, cross-reference artists and behind-camera crew (credits include producers, directors, writers) and checkout their back catalogue. Then amaze the rest of the sofa with your erudition, before dazzling them with your grasp of totally useless trivia.

Radio Comedy 1938 - 1968

A Guide to 30 Years of Wonderful Wireless

by Andy Foster & Steve Furst

A From the start of the Second World War until the end of the 1960s, radio was the medium for British Comedy. From this crucible of talent emerged writers such as Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Denis Norden and Frank Muir; and performers of lasting genius and popularity such as Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock and Spike Milligan.

Radio Comedy is a detailed, authoritative and humorous guide to the golden age of laughter on the airwaves. It contains complete transmission details and critical appraisals of all the most important series - for instance Band Waggon, ITMA, Educating Archie, The Goon Show, Round the Horne and I'm Sorry I’ll Read That Again - but it doesn't forget influential obscurities like Danger! Men at Work, written by Max Kester, or zany experiments such as Max Wall's radio shows Hoop-la! and Our Shed.

...and June Whitfield - The Autobiography

by June Whitfield

In a fifty six year career spanning Take It From Here to Absolutely Fabulous, June Whitfield's presence in a show has always been a hallmark of quality. From Shakespeare to Carry On films, from Penge rep to the Palladium, there is hardly a theatre or studio where she hasn't appeared and in the process acquired a wonderfully funny backstage tale to tell. June Whitfield writes perceptively about the great comics she has known in her long professional life, from Arthur Askey, Tony Hancock, Wilfred Pickles, Jimmy Edwards, Bob Monkhouse, Ronnie Barker, Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Terry Scott and Frankie Howerd, to Roy Hudd, Julian Clary and Jennifer Saunders. She views the changing fashions in television over the last half-century with benign detachment, and relishes being in the modern comedy loop just as much as in the days when announcers wore dinner jackets. Actress, storyteller, wife and mother - whatever the role, she remains endearingly herself and one of our greatest national treasures.

Cream boards / Gold inscribed spine