The lad himself

The inimitable brilliance of Tony Hancock and the combined talents of Galton and Simpson
and the Hancock team return to radio in ten repeats of old favourites from the original series.
Here, Barry Took assesses the near-genius of the man and his comedy.

What makes a great comedian? Come to that, what makes any kind of comedian? It isn't the funny hat or the comical walk, it's the knack of being an interpreter of what we, the audience, believe but have never been able to put precisely into words.
      The funny man talks of life and death, of hope and despair, of aspiration and failure, of thwarted hopes; of visions and desires. It's a rare gift: a mixture of insight, optimism, deep despair and self-awareness that most of us don't possess, and it is ironic that these very qualities are the ones that often cause the comedian's final eclipse. It's as if he trips on the banana skin just once too often and kills himself. Not always literally, of course. Sometimes comics, for no obvious reason, just become unpopular. Or maybe some indiscretion in the comic's private life becomes public property and people feel that their hero is somehow soiled, his bonhomie false, his jokes lies. Sometimes, through age or neurosis, comics just stop being funny, and sometimes comics are just not funny in the first place and have only been kept in the public eye by brilliant writers or producers. Occasionally comedians become so personally obnoxious that no one will employ them and they become forgotten.
He genuinely wanted to go it alone
      The awful truth about comedians is that the public only want them to be funny. They don't want philosophers or pundits or politicians, they just want a man who will make them laugh.
      In his all-too-short career Tony Hancock probably made more people laugh than any other British comedian.
      The news of his death, alone, in Australia in 1968 came as a terrible shock to many people. It wasn't just a comic who had died; it was a symbol.
      Why did he die? What made him despair so much that he couldn't face living another day? Well, he was a sensitive man, that's obvious. He was thoughtful and intelligent. He was also selfish, narcissistic, and desperately insecure. It is my belief that he was ashamed of what he supposed was a weakness in himself - his lack of ubiquity. He felt he ought to be able to do everything. Not only through vanity but through a yearning to be renaissance man: artist, writer, philosopher, politician and banker rolled into one. He wasn't content to be another Billy Russell, he wanted to be Bertrand Russell as well.
      He felt that to need Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Alan Simpson and Ray Galton, Dennis Main Wilson, and Duncan Wood and the rest was a sign of inadequacy in himself. He genuinely wanted to go it alone.
      With all those excellent actors, writers and producers surrounding him he felt unable to achieve his full potential, and one by one he discarded them. Intellectual snobbery played a part, too. He chose Philip Oakes to write The Punch and Judy Man with him largely because Oakes was not only a journalist, critic and novelist, but also a fine poet.
      As it happens, The Punch and Judy Man, while not a commercial success in the cinema, looks very good on television. Tony Hancock needed the intimacy of radio and television, and while adequate on the big screen he was curiously diminished by its size. His art was the art of the close-up. His comedy could be compared to chamber music rather than oratorio. His tragedy was that, not content to be, as it were, Sir Thomas Beecham he wanted to be Delius, Heifetz and Stradivarius, too.
      I can remember gossiping with Tony in a bar in Blindley Heath, where he lived for many years. We talked about working and personal relationships (my wife had been his secretary for a time), and the problems of getting exactly what you wanted on to radio or the screen. We gossiped of this and that for an hour or so and then he confessed his burning ambition. It was to play King Lear with Richard Burton and Wilfred Lawson, the three of them taking it turn and turn about to play Lear and Fool. I expressed surprise and delight at the prospect. Privately I was profoundly dubious. Would such a venture see the light of day? Could such a project ever be realised? Reality said no, but the idea was magnificent. It was ideas in the end that strangled Tony Hancock. He didn't want to be just the selfish braggart of Railway Cuttings, the outsmarted dupe, the pompous ass. Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday - yes. The rest of the week he wanted to do other things, to be another sort of person.
Silly, flawed, and infinitely original
      In his home at Blindley Heath the walls of one room were devoted to what could only be described as gems from the philosophers; their thoughts jotted by Tony in a way in which he hoped would one day connect and form one single philosophic whole - the riddle of the universe solved for all time.
      What he didn't see was that the riddle was answered right there in his mirror. Not a case of 'I think, therefore I am 'but' I am, therefore I think'.
      To be Tony Hancock was sufficient for several people's lifetimes. That he couldn't allow his own life to run its natural course is a tragedy. Mercifully, there are ample records of his work. While the acetate holds out Tony Hancock is going to be with us. Silly, flawed, and infinitely original.
      It will be good to hear, again, the master's voice.
Barry Took

 

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