Press clippings Page 5

Tony Hancock gets blue plaque on 90th birthday

English Heritage have unveiled a blue plaque at a former home of Tony Hancock ahead of his 90th birthday today.

British Comedy Guide, 12th May 2014

An idea pioneered by the BBC, lately adopted by Sky, and now back again on the BBC, Comedy Playhouse was an exciting notion: a kind of "try before you buy" test on potential new comedy series. Originally created as a way for Tony Hancock's writers Alan Galton and Ray Simpson to spread their wings beyond East Cheam, the series spawned Last Of The Summer Wine and more Galton & Simpson gold in Steptoe And Son. This doc features the pair as talking heads alongside stalwarts such as June Whitfield.

John Robinson, The Guardian, 29th April 2014

Pub favoured by classic comics faces demolition

A London pub that became a 'Mecca for comedy' as a favourite haunt of Tommy Cooper, Tony Hancock and Sid James faces demolition as a hotel group plans to raze a huge part of Leicester Square's conservation area and turn it into a 360-bedroom, 10-story hotel and cinema complex.

Paul Gallagher, The Independent, 27th September 2013

Tony Hancock had no children, but for decades his descendants have been all around us. Basil Fawlty, Rigsby from Rising Damp, Brian Potter from Phoenix Nights, Mark Corrigan from Peep Show, Alan Partridge - all inherited his genes, or at any rate his character's genes (it isn't easy to be sure of the difference, given that by far his most successful role was as a miserable actor-comedian called Tony Hancock).

It would be absurd to suggest the listed characters are identical - every one of them is a brilliant creation in his own right - but all are irritable, stuffy, pompous, emotionally constipated and prematurely middle-aged; they tut and sneer and grumble and moan, each convinced that Fate has singled him out for mistreatment he doesn't deserve.

All are in some way thwarted, yearning impotently for stardom (Partridge), status (Fawlty, Potter), a beautiful woman (Rigsby, Corrigan). And each, most importantly, exudes an air of pathos. No matter how wretchedly they behave, the viewer can't hate them. They remain somehow heroes, awful heroes, and against our better judgement we're on their side. Just as we were with their father, Hancock.

On Tuesday the great progenitor was the subject of BBC One's occasional series My Hero. Ben Miller, of Armstrong & Miller, was the man paying tribute, rummaging through his life and shaking his head in admiration at old scripts of Hancock's Half Hour. These scripts were written not by Hancock but by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, whom Miller interviewed.

Given Hancock enjoyed vast success while Galton & Simpson were writing for him, and next to none after he'd got rid of them, it might be tempting to wonder whether My Hero should have been about them instead. But if Hancock's Half Hour was the biggest thing on radio and TV, it wasn't just because of the dialogue. Hancock himself - and again I'm not sure whether I mean the character, the man or both - stood for something. He stood for England, the England of the 1950s. Weary, glamourless, frustrated, frayed, but battling grumpily on - that was England, and that was Hancock. Hancock's success came to an end not long after the Fifties had. He killed himself in 1968.

Michael Deacon, The Telegraph, 30th August 2013

My Hero - Ben Miller on Tony Hancock; TV review

Ben Miller gave us a profile of Tony Hancock with an unexpected depth of insight.

Tom Meltzer, The Guardian, 28th August 2013

Review - My Hero: Ben Miller on Tony Hancock

It was the smaller corners of this tribute to a comic genius that made My Hero: Ben Miller on Tony Hancock worth watching.

Arifa Akbar, The Independent, 28th August 2013

Daily Mail review

This tribute was crammed with clips of Tony Hancock's brilliance, from his radio days in the Fifties, when he had matinee-idol looks, to his dishevelled and slurred performance at the Royal Festival Hall 15 years later.

Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail, 28th August 2013

As a slip of a lad, Ben Miller fell under the lugubrious spell of Tony Hancock, the legendary comic actor whose hit radio series Hancock's Half Hour, followed up by a TV version called simply Hancock, propelled him into the ranks of Britain's all-time comedy greats.

So what was it about the perpetually grumpy Hancock that touched the funny bone of the young Miller? Here he explains how watching Hancock's classic sketch The Blood Donor changed his life.

Carol Carter and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, Metro, 27th August 2013

Using comedians to sing the praises of the performers who have inspired them has offered an interesting perspective to the usual documentary format and this occasional series ends tonight with a new tribute to Tony Hancock.

"His attitude to life infuses all of British comedy," says Ben Miller, which explains why the clips from Hancock's Half Hour, and Hancock which followed it, still have a timeless appeal.

To find out where that iconic character came from - the pompous, despondent failure - Ben meets Hancock's writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

And he revisits the various stages of his career: from the six shows a day in the London revue club where his act was just an interruption to the naked ladies, to his stab at serious drama in The Punch And Judy Man - by which time his drinking had gone beyond a joke.

Jane Simon, The Mirror, 27th August 2013

Review - My Hero: Ben Miller on Tony Hancock

Homage to a genius of yesteryear works despite flimsy telly tropes.

Jasper Rees, The Arts Desk, 27th August 2013

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