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Plot Synopsis

A brief summary of the plot.

Cast & Characters

Who was in it and the characters they played.

Locations

23 Railway Cuttings, The Hand & Racket, Fred’s Pie Stall and all the other places in the semi-fictional town of East Cheam. Occasionally, we are taken farther afield.

Thoughts

The bit where I get to ponder, muse, opinionate etc. My thoughts on the story and the performances.

Musical Notes

Any music played or mentioned.

Trivia

Exactly that. Stuff that you may not know about the episode.

Inconsistencies

It’s all in fun and not meant as criticism by any means, but things like Hancock’s background, career changed as the series went on. Almost as much as the layout of 23 Railyway Cuttings!

Questions

Stuff about the episode that has me stumped. Cultural references mostly or things that you will only know about if you remember the 50s better than someone born in 1968 does! Hopefully, some of you reading the guides will be able to help out and I can include you answers here.

Availabilty

Where to get a copy of the episode or hear it on the radio or TV.

Rating

Not sure about this. Is the world ready for me to rank all the BBC Radio episodes in order of popularity? Maybe.

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A summary of the story.

Characters

Who played what.

Locations

23 Railway Cuttings, The Hand & Racket etc.

Thoughts

My thoughts.

Musical Notes

Tunes played, songs mentioned.

Trivia

Interesting facts.

Inconsistencies

Just for fun. Stuff that doesn’t quite make sense or ring true.

Questions

Who was? What is? Questions for older readers maybe.

Availabilty

Where to get it.

Rating

Out of 10.

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I left school in July 1986, having repeatedly listened to hastily-made copies of the audio cassettes almost continuously. I joined Plymouth library and ordered every Cassette and LP they had listed on their microfiche but they were mostly better quality copies of episodes I had already heard. What almost made up for this fact were the brilliant artwork on these 1983 LP covers – hand painted and lively characterizations of the cast. Roger Wilmut’s book detailed all of the episodes stored in the BBC archives but only 12 or so episodes had been released to the public and in those pre-internet days, it seemed that my search had come to a premature end with only an occasional BBC radio repeat at Christmas to keep me going.

In the early 90s, the drought came to and end when the BBC, along with repackaging (again) of existing cassettes, began to release new double cassettes. From memory, these appeared about twice a year. Finally, in 1999, the BBC started to release CD box sets of every surviving radio episode, one series at a time. My collection was, eventually, almost complete. As recently as last year, “The Blackboard Jungle” and “The New Secretary” surfaced from private collections.

The internet is a vast repository of knowledge and trivia but strangely, there are still very few websites devoted to Hancock. The Tony Hancock Appreciation Society is still doing stirling work and is itself represented on the web. I looked when I first hooked up to the interweb many years ago and I still look for new sites from time to time. There are still a few and I wish to salute their efforts (I have included as many sites as I could find on my Links page).

This site is a guide to Tony Hancock’s work from my perspective. In what must be the most self-indulgent task I have ever undertaken, I am going to listen to or watch them all over again. And then I am going to write about it here. I will start with the BBC Radio Programmes but probably not in order. I lack the will-power to put off reviewing favourites such as “The Picnic”, “The Sleepless Night”, Fred’s Pie Stall”, “The Last Bus Home” and, of course “Sunday Afternoon At Home” for too long.

As you may have noticed, I will be using the titles assigned by Roger Wilmut in his excellent, indispensable “Tony Hancock – Artiste” book. They are as close to the official titles as makes no difference, a fact that BBC7 seem to agree with as they use them too. If I occasionally quote him, or any of the other authors who have written about Hancock then it is either subconcious or unavoidable. I will endeavor to give due credit where it is due, but forgive me if I am remiss on occasion.

All of the words here are mine and vaguely copyrighted to me. If you want to quote me elsewhere, please do the decent thing and at least credit me and/or include a link back to this site. The art, graphics and photos were all found by searching Google images, Flickr and many other websites. No copyright infringement is intended but I thought the place would look pretty dull without a few pictures. This site is entirely free to use but I am a member of the Amazon Associates Program and if you go to follow a link to Amazon through my site and buy anything, I will receive a very small commission. I hope you don’t object to this as small recompense towards the hours that I put into the site.

Please feel free to contact me about anything (well almost) and I will do my best to answer. If you have anything to add or have spotted a mistake amongst my many words, please let me know. If you just like it, then drop me a line or comment on the post and let me know. I look after a number of websites and you have no idea how nice it feels to receive an Email that just says “Well done” or “I like it.”

Please don’t contact me requesting copies of episodes. I highly recommend joining the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society and making use of their audio library.

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