TheMISSING PAGE THE NEWSLETTER OF THE TONY HANCOCK APPRECIATION SOCIETY Special Edition 1 - January 2016 - The ATV Series Tony Hancock's ATV Series Compiled by Tom Dommett 1 Contents Page 2 - Contents, introduction and acknowledgements Page 3 - Background and production Page 8 - Extract ATV Television Show Book Page 15 - Extract ATV Television Star Book Page 19 - Interview with Tony Hancock from Time and Tide Page 20 - Episode Guide Page 43 - Cast List Page 44 - Key People Page 48 - Reflections on the series Page 52 - Critical reaction in 1963 Page 53 - Press Cuttings Page 56 - Bibliography and Selected Tony Hancock Appreciation Society Contacts Page 57 - Tony Hancock Poster Introduction and Acknowledgements This special edition of The Missing Page is devoted to the ATV series made by Tony Hancock in 1962/63. My greatest thanks must go to Christopher Burgess of Lymm for sending me copies of the ATV Star Book and the ATV Television Show Book features on Tony Hancock that sparked the idea for this project. Too lengthy to fit into a standard issue of The Missing Page they nevertheless were a fascinating contemporary insight into the programme. Seeking to share them with a wider audience, the idea grew of a special issue devoted to the ATV series. That issue grew from 12 pages to its current size. My grateful thanks also go to Tristan Brittain-Dissont, archivist of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society (THAS) who found the interview with Tony in Time and Tide reproduced on page 18 and for his input to the drafting process. A special mention also to Mick Dawson, THAS librarian, for the photo of Tony on page 6. There are fascinating and tantalising snippets of the ATV series contained in many of the books on Tony Hancock. Hopefully I have collected together the most comprehensive collection of information about the series in one place. If you have anything to add, please get in touch. The ATV series has never been repeated on TV or made commercially available on DVD/Video. For this reason, it has been overlooked and acquired a reputation of being not very good. It is evident that people have very different senses of humour. One person will describe a section of a programme as funny while another will find it unamusing. In fact, it has many extremely funny moments and whilst it is not as good as Tony’s work with Galton and Simpson at his peak, few TV programmes are, even now, 60 years later. Judged against a less exacting standard, the ATV series can be enjoyed and appreciated as part of Tony’s life work that thankfully wasn’t wiped or never recorded. You may have to zoom in to read some of the newspaper clippings or perhaps print them off to get a clearer view. I am also indebted to Martin Gibbons, Tristan Brittain-Dissont and Andrew Clayden of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society for their encouragement in this project and Gary Lingham for his DVDs. My praise to everyone who has ever been a member of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society - we owe them so much in preserving Tony’s legacy, some of which would otherwise have been lost. An impulse purchase in Brighton of a second hand copy of the David Nathan/Freddie Hancock book mentioned in the bibliography sparked my keen interest in all things Tony Hancock. Funny how things happen and where they lead. Thanks to to Nicola (Niki) Dolman for her encouragement and support. Last but not least, my thanks to Tony Hancock and Ray Galton and Alan Simpson for providing me with hours of laughter. This booklet is dedicated to Rowan Merry and Blake Fortune. This booklet is intended solely as a tribute to Tony Hancock and is not commercial in anyway. It should not be offered for sale. Its purpose is to facilitate research study, education and criticism of the work of Tony Hancock 2 Background and Production In 1962 Tony Hancock was at the pinnacle of his success. He had been a radio star in both Educating Archie and Hancock's Half Hour. He had successfully transferred Hancock's Half Hour from Radio to TV. He had made a feature film, the Rebel which was both profitable and well received by the UK critics. Recently he been seen by many people as part of a double act with Sid James. He felt he had exhausted the setting of Railway Cuttings and East Cheam. He said he had done everything in that room (23 Railway Cuttings) apart from be obscene. He dropped Sid James and the Hancock character moved to Earls Court. A a result he produced TV comedy of outstanding brilliance. The Blood Donor, The Radio Ham, The Bedsitter became part of British culture - quoted in pubs, homes and work places. Tony appeared on Face to Face, a top interview programme usually for people like Bertrand Russell and Carl Jung. Tony Hancock was truly a national icon. People related to the man portrayed in Hancock's Half Hour, he was seen as representing the ordinary man in the street. You only need to say “Hancock” and people knew who you were talking about. His TV shows were at the top of the ratings. Tony was not content with his success. Throughout his career he had always sought to do better. Like most of his generation of performers he longed to be a film star. Being a film star - meant many things, glamour, fame, fortune and Hollywood. It meant being international. The British Film Industry couldn’t compete in terms of production budgets, pay for stars, fame or distribution with Hollywood. Being a film star meant making it in America. Striving for International Stardom The BBC had tried to sell Hancock’s Half Hour TV shows to TV networks in the USA but this was largely unsuccessful. The Americans found it difficult to understand what Tony was saying. Even the more English sounding East Coast Americans struggled. They said if people couldn’t understand him in New York what would they make of him in the Mid West or Southern States? It was just about accent, more on that later. Tellingly the first UK comedian to make it massive in the USA was Benny Hill - who broke though after he had become a very visual, slapstick performer with signposted jokes and a slower pace people could follow easily. Tony came to dislike his film, the Rebel, which had been savaged by the critics in the USA. Probably the one followed the other. Parallel with his desire to be international, Tony had also a desire to make comedy based on realism. For him realism meant real life. Tony had pushed for years for his scripts to be more realistic and it had paid dividends. Situations became more lifelike. Instead of of running a train based on a bath and beds the humour came from ordinary situations such as an army pals reunion or a trip to become a blood donor. Laughs didn’t come from jokes and funny voices but from funny situations and dialogue. So by 1962 Tony was looking to move into films and have a TV show that could be shown around the world. There were two main elements to achieving his aims. One with the technical. Either to make films or to make TV shows which could be shown easily round the world. The other was to give his comedy international appeal. Tony came to believe that to be international his comedy had to be set ‘no where’ that could be anywhere. He failed to appreciate that the reason films from the USA were international was because their culture was understood internationally. The break with his long term script writers Tony was unable to agree a film script with his writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. He first agreed to the story ideas but he then rejected the scripts, two before they were finished and one after it was complete. Galton and Simpson had spent six months working without pay, so Tony suggested they go and write some TV while he would sort the film out by himself. Ironically, Tony then made a film, the Punch and Judy Man which was about as parochial as possible - about a Punch and Judy Man, his failing marriage and petty local bigwigs, set in a run down out of season , English seaside resort. A film with less international appeal would be hard to imagine. Hardly anywhere outside England even had Punch and Judy man. It was however closer to fulfilling Tony’s other view that comedy should be based on realism. Overall it is a very melancholy film. 3 In 1962, Tony had left the BBC and was keen to make an international TV series. Indeed the overwhelming reason for him leaving the BBC was his search for international recognition and greater artistic control. As Tom Sloan, Head of Light Entertainment, wrote in an internal BBC memo, “Hancock was primarily interested in making television films in which he could retain full control of domestic and overseas rights. I took his brother agent to see the General Manager Television Enterprises who explained the problems and expense of such film making and who pointed out that the BBC did not do such deals. Quite clearly he has found an organisation that does and he had gone there for that reason. Unless we were prepared to resign our production control and underwrite the project with something like £150,000 for 13 programmes and film them rather than telescreen them we could do no business.” ITV had been keen to poach Tony Hancock from the BBC for years, offering him more money.