Hancock's Half Hour

Hancock's Half Hour was a BBC radio and later television comedy series of the 1950s. It was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who also created Steptoe and Son. The main character, a pompous self-important fool, was played by Tony Hancock. His boorish offsider, whose chief task it is to bring Tony back to reality, was played by Sid James. Bill Kerr also featured as Hancock's dim Australian boarder. (Hancock, James and Kerr's characters all used variations on their real names). Moira Lister, then Andrée Melly, played Tony's girlfriends. Later, Hattie Jacques played Hancock's secretary, the rather prim Miss Pugh. Kenneth Williams featured as a number of characters, most notably one nicknamed 'Snide'. In the TV version the regular cast was pared down to Hancock and James, although Williams and Jacques made a couple of guest appearances in early episodes.

Both versions were smash hits. Previously, comedy had centred around music hall-style slapstick, rather than situation comedy, and Hancock's Half Hour could be said to be the first British situation comedy. The BBC received a string of complaint letters from pub owners because so many of their patrons went home to watch or listen to the show. In any voting contest of great British comedies, Hancock always comes in with a high ranking, even though many of its fans were not even born when it was made.

Not to be confused with Hancock.

Tropes used in Hancock's Half Hour include:

AB Negative - Tony is found to be AB in 'The Blood Donor' - the resulting episode is a classic.
Backup Twin - parodied in 'The Bowmans'
The BBC - in real life, the broadcaster of the show, and in-universe, Tony the failing actor sometimes worked on BBC shows.
Bottle Episode - 'The Bedsitter'
Britcom - arguably the first one.
British Accents - you can't get much more Cockney than Sid James.
- Which is ironic given that Sid James was South African!
- Not too unexpected, given that South Africa is part of the Commonwealth and this was the 1950s. Lots of people still sounded British (or tried to). It'd be more jarring these days, but it's a few years later after all.
- Meanwhile, Hattie Jacques spoke in Received Pronunciation, while Kenneth Williams slid along a scale between RP and Cockney depending on the character he was voicing.
The Cast Showoff - Tony Hancock was often given a chance to show off material from his stage acts, including his impressions of Charles Laughton and Robert Newton.
Catch Phrase - Tony: 'Stone me, what a life!' Snide: 'Stop messing about!'
- The latter was used in the '70s as the title of a Kenneth Williams comedy series on Radio4.
Corpsing - happened from time to time and left in since either the shows were live or (later) done without retakes.
Cut Lex Luthor a Check - lampshaded in one episode, where Sid realises it's easier to go to the bank for an overdraft rather than come up with one of his usual over-complicated schemes.
The Danza - Other than Williams' and Jacques' characters, the main characters all had the same name as the actors who played them.
Dropped a Bridge on Him - Played for laughs in "The Bowmans". After Hancock has been unceremoniously killed off from a radio soap opera, popular pressure forces the producers to bring him back. Tony Hancock insists that if he comes back, he be allowed to write his own scripts. The next episode features the rest of the cast walking across a field before falling down an abandoned mineshaft.
Everyone Looks Sexier If French - Andrée Melly put on a French accent, because Tony Hancock was a Francophile in real life.
The Fifties - Being a British show, though, it's quite realistic rather than a Stepford suburban nightmare.
Flanderization - averted - Sid James goes from being an Honest John in the radio series to a Deadpan Snarker on TV.
- The plots themselves became less flanderized as the series progressed; changing from the complicated schemes of the radio series to simple character studies in the tv series (Sid & Tony take a train, Sid & Tony take bus ride, Tony goes to give blood).
- Played straight in the radio series with Bill Kerr, who became more simple-minded and childlike with each series.
Funny Character, Boring Actor - Tony Hancock was a brilliant actor, but in real life was very introverted and suffered from alcoholism. It is somewhat painful watching the struggles of the character when you know the actor's life went into a downward spiral, which ended in suicide.
- Similarly, Kenneth Williams was a wildly popular comic actor, who was known for his outrageously camp characters. In real life, he was very conflicted about being gay, as he was brought up to be deeply religious, and considered it immoral. He died of an overdose, which may have been an accident, or suicide.
Have a Gay Old Time - In 'A Sunday Afternoon At Home', Tony compares the excitement of a Sunday afternoon 'on the Continent' with a boring old English Sunday afternoon, where everything's shut. Naturally, this leads him to describe continental Europe in the most positive terms, where 'everything's gay! Not over here [Britain].'
Honest John's Dealership - Sid James in the radio version.
In-Series Nickname - Bill calls Tony 'Tub', though no-one else does.
Killed Off for Real - 'The Bowmans' again.
Locked in a Room - 'The Lift' - of course, it's all Tony's fault as usual.
Lost in Transmission - 'The Radio Ham'
Missing Episode - 31 of the 102 radio episodes, including three episodes of the second series when Harry Secombe stood in for an unwell Tony Hancock. All of the first series of the TV series are missing, as well as all but one episode of the second series and approximately half of each of the third and fourth series. Many of the early episodes were live; the second series episode only survives because a BBC technician asked for a recording. A few radio episodes and a couple of crudely-recorded TV soundtracks have been recovered from domestic recordings.
Negative Continuity - Several radio episodes ended with Tony (and sometimes Sid and/or Bill) being killed or sentenced to a long stint in prison, or with Tony's house razed to the ground. By the next episode, everything was back to "normal".
Odd Couple - Lord knows why Tony puts up with Sid. Lord knows why Sid puts up with Tony.
- Because sharing the rent is cheaper and nobody else would put up with either of them?
Only Known by Their Nickname - In 'The Reunion', all of Hancock's World War II army chums all have forties-style nicknames ('Chalky' White etc)
Overly Long Gag - "Wouldn't it be quicker if you took off the boxing gloves?"
Pressure Sensitive Interface - 'The Lift'
Quirky Household
Rogue Juror - it's the title of the episode, as well.
Running Time in the Title - it was indeed half an hour. There was also a TV special called Hancock's Forty-Three Minutes. The last season was reduced to 25 minutes and renamed Hancock (as we said, not to be confused with...)
Sampling - Jet Set Radio, of all things- The "Will you stop playing with that radio of yours? I'm trying to get to sleep!" in Let Mom Sleep is from Hancock's Half Hour. It was in a George Michael song, too.
Sitcom Character Archetypes - Tony is The Dork and Sid is The Wisecracker.
Something That Begins With Boring - 'The Train Journey'. Tony and Sid's fellow passengers are not amused...
Sound to Screen Adaptation - The radio show started in 1954, and the TV series in 1956. From 1956 to 1959 the two versions ran simultaneously.
- Also screen to sound, since four of the TV episodes were adapted for LP records and recorded in front of audiences, just like the radio episodes except without the BBC's involvement.
Why Do You Keep Changing Jobs? - Although the various characters for whom Kenneth Williams used the "Snide" voice in the radio series were never explicitly said to be the same person, Tony tended to react as though he had had unpleasant previous encounters with them in other jobs. Sid is a more straightforward example, overlapping with Honest John's Dealership.
With Friends Like These... - In the radio series and some of the early television series, Sid would frequently exploit or manipulate Tony for personal gain, such as by tricking him into stealing valuable goods, selling him (and Bill) into the French Foreign Legion, or conspiring to have his house knocked down to build a used car lot on the land.
- For his part, Tony was often comically cruel to Bill, making him do such dangerous tasks as lying in the road to prevent his car from being towed or acting as a human shield in case an unexploded bomb should go off. Nevertheless, Bill still considered "Tub" a friend.
You Say Tomato - In one episode where Tony was planning to emigrate, he was continually mispronouncing Canada (he said it as if it rhymed with Grenada) despite everyone's attempts to correct him.