Harry Secombe who replaced Tony Hancock is replaced by Andrew Secombe as the BBC recreate the behind the scenes drama of the Missing Hancock scripts.

I've written several times of  my love of legendary comedian, Tony Hancock - you can find Hancock related posts HERE and HERE. So I was cautious a few years back when I heard that the BBC were going to re-record some of the missing shows from their archives with a new cast - I need not have worried  - Actor, Kevin McNally does a remarkable job reinventing Hancock. So good that if you played these episodes to someone they'd never know it wasn't Hancock they were listening to. In fact the entire cast have done an amazing job - Kevin Eldon sounds exactly like Bill Kerr,  Robin Sabastian is camply spot on as Kenneth Williams and whilst, Simon Greenall may have not quite nailed Sid James' distinctive smoky voice he does at least get his trademark laugh. And of course the scripts are pure Galton and Simpson.

When I heard the first series of these recreated episodes I loved them - I now own most of them as audiobook thanks to the wonderful service that is Audible . The background on the episodes is that the BBC recorded 103 episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, recognised by many as the first sitcom, for the BBC Light Service, but 20 of these episodes were wiped. For many years the scripts for these missing episodes were thought to have been destroyed but when the scripts were re-discovered the BBC decided to recreate the episodes - there is, after all, still a massive audience for the genius of Galton and Simpson's Hancock's Half Hour.

Now just over Christmas I caught the third season, of The Missing Hancocks and it is now that they get totally surreal. Back in 1955 when the original episodes were recorded, Tony Hancock was having a dispute over the fact that the recording of his successful radio series was clashing with his lucrative theatre work. Hancock felt he was getting pressure from both sides - the BBC and his theatre producer. Hancock's response to this was to vanish - he buggered off to Rome without telling anyone. The BBC were in trouble - Hancock was a hugely successful radio series, and rather than cancel they brought in Welsh comedian, Harry Secombe, famed for among other things, his work on The Goon Show. In the end Secombe did three episodes - A Trip to France,  The Crown Jewels and The Racehorse - so successful was Secombe that the BBC had plans to change the name of the series to, Secombe's Half Hour should Tony Hancock fail to return. However, Hancock did return and the first episode of his return saw him and Bill Kerr visiting Swansea to thank Secombe for standing in.

Like father like son - Harry and Andrew Secombe

The story of Hancock vanishing is interesting - when producer, Dennis Main Wilson went to the Adelphi Theatre to give Hancock the first script for the second series of the sitcom, which was due to be recorded that weekend he was told he wasn't there, had vanished. Frantic telephone calls to Tony's wife and agent failed to reveal the whereabouts of the star. Main Wilson then went around all the bars Hancock was known to frequent but he wasn't found. Shortly afterwards Main Wilson received a surprise telephone call from Chief Superintendent Ginger Rose of Scotland Yard - the policeman had tickets to attend the recording of the shows and he wanted to know what the star of the show was doing on a plane to Rome. Main Wilson felt that the recordings would have to be cancelled but the BBC said they would go ahead with a replacement. Welsh clown, Harry Secombe was drafted in and recorded his episodes directly following recordings of Goon Show Episodes.

Now when the BBC came to record these episodes as part of The Missing Hancock series they could have simply done them with Kevin McNally playing Hancock himself, but instead they opted to re-create them as faithfully as possible and drafted in Andrew Secombe to play his father's part. In fact in the fourth of the Secombe episodes Andrew is actually playing his father rather than his father's version of the Hancock character,  as Kevin McNally's Hancock come to Swansea to thank him for his involvement.

"These programmes have long been a source of curiosity among the family, developing an almost mythic quality - indeed I had no idea that the scripts still existed until I got the call from Neil Pearson! I'm thrilled to be a part of the very talented team bringing these episodes of a much-loved series back to life. Who'd have thought taking over the family business could be such fun?" Andrew Secombe.

The episodes can be heard on the BBC website.

The lad himself

I watched an episode of Hancock last night - The Set that Failed came from the fourth series of the television show and was originally broadcast in 1959. I've always been a big fan of Hancock both the radio show and the TV version. Now Hancock's comedy usually came from the wonderfully written lines and observations of the writing team, and even when the show transferred from Radio to TV the show could just as easily been enjoyed as audio only - indeed many of the more famous TV episodes do well on audio CD and fans are able to quote entire chunks of dialog from episodes like The Blood Donar and the Radio Ham.

However there's a great bit of visual comedy in the episode entitled, The Set that Failed - the plot is that Hancock's TV set is broken and so he and Sid sneak into a neighbors home to watch TV - what follows in a scene that can best be described as synchronized TV viewing is absolutely hilarious. Check out the short clip here, and watch as none of the characters take their eyes from the box while they each do their part in serving dinner.

British comedy  at its best.

There's a clown in the sky

Hancock's Last Half Hour.

The title tells all. Barricaded in his Sydney hotel bedroom with plentiful stocks of vodka, the lad from East Cheam casts a bleary eye over his wrecked career and marriages before swallowing the last handful of pills. 

Richard Briars plays the doomed comedian in the BBC Radio adaptation of Heathcote Williams'  one man play. A play that takes us into the soul of the troubled genius who was Tony Hancock.

The play is basically a one act monologue with the audience placed as a fly on the wall in Tony Hancock's room on that fateful day in 1968 when the comedian followed up a few bottles of vodka with that last handful of pills. It's powerful stuff and Briars, known for his light comedy roles, is a revelation in this powerful role. The actors voice is so well known to British ears and yet as soon as he speaks he becomes the lad himself, Tony Hancock. 


a clown is essentially a solitary man

  It's a tragic story with very little light and slowly we enter a world of madness as a drunken and drugged Hancock babbles on at random, every now and then offering up insightful nuggets of comedy. He's become a pathetic figure, bitter at an audience he feels failed to allow him to grow creatively. 


i laugh to hide my sadness


The play is available for the next seven days at the Radio Four Extra website HERE and if, like me, you are a fan of Hancock then this will delight you, and ultimately break your heart...powerful stuff indeed.

Hancock committed suicide, by overdose, in Sydney, on 24 June 1968. He was found dead in his Bellevue Hill apartment with an empty vodka bottle by his right hand and amphetamines by his left. In one of his suicide notes he wrote: "Things just seemed to go too wrong too many times"

THE ARCHIVE LIKES - Toeknee Handc**ck

The name Tony Hancock was known to me as a school kid without being aware of who he was. His fame in the school play yard was because he was the only comedian whose name you could spell out with body parts - You see it used to amuse us, spotty scruffy kids, to spell the name in body parts. You'd go, "Toe" and point to your toes, and then "Knee" and point to your knees - toeknee and then Han would become hand and ...well, you can figure out the rest.

I think the great man would have gotten a kick out of that.

Hancock, was one of the finest comedic actors that Britain has ever produced and his long running show, Hancock Half Hour which started out on radio and then transferred to television is generally credited with inventing the sitcom. At a time when most comedy was sketch driven, Hancock's show, written by the legendary team of Galton and Simpson, was event driven and would portray the misadventures of Hancock and his friends each week.

The best known episodes are the generally regarded classics - The blood doner, the radio ham, the bowmen. Like Monty Python huge swathes of dialogue from the Hancock scripts are so well known that people often quote them in day to day speech.

"A pint! - that's very near an armful.' Hancock pointed out to a doctor when he had gone along to give blood and enquired about how much they wanted. "I'm not walking around with an empty arm."

Hancock would see himself becoming Britains best known comedian before quitting his television series at the height of its fame to concentrate on feature films. His first film The Rebel was only a minor success and his his second The Punch and Judy Man flopped miserably. Hancock then went to Australia and signed up for a six part comedy series - Hancock Down Under - he only completed three episodes before committing suicide in June 1968. In recent years Hancock had suffered a myriad of personal problems.

His legacy lives on and many of the episodes of his popular TV and Radio series have been released on DVD and CD - BBC Radio 4 Extra  regularly broadcasts episodes of the radio series