Tony Hancock
In Victorian England, a fortune now depends on which of two brothers outlives the other—or can be made to have seemed to do so.
Set in 1910. In order to boost circulation of his newspaper, Lord Rawnsley offers £10,000 to the first person who can fly across the English Channel.
Walter Pinner (Tony Hancock) is the titular Punch And Judy Man plying his trade in the seaside town of Piltdown. Unhappily married to his social climbing wife (Sylvia Sims), who gets him to perform at the 60th Anniversary celebrations of the town in front of all the local dignitaries, his hatred of snobbery comes to a hilarious head.
Gogol's comedy of errors, satirizing human greed, stupidity, and the extensive political corruption of Imperial Russia.
Thirty-five years after his premature death in 1968 Tony Hancock was voted Britain's best-ever comedy performer. Here's a chance to see what made him so special - the surviving episodes from Series 2 and Series 3 of Hancock's Half Hour, plus a Christmas special. Episodes include: "The Alpine Holiday", "Air Steward Hancock", "The Last Of The Many", "The Lawyer: The Crown vs Sidney James", "Competitions: How To Win Money And Influence People" and "There's An Airfield At The Bottom Of My Garden". The Christmas special is "Hancock's Forty-Three Minutes: The East Cheam Repertory Company".
Hancock's Half Hour is a BBC radio comedy, and later television comedy, series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock, with Sid James; the radio version also co-starred, at various times, Moira Lister, Andrée Melly, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. The final television series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development. The radio version was produced by Dennis Main Wilson for most of its run. After Main Wilson departed for his television career, his role was taken by Tom Ronald. The television series was produced by Duncan Wood. The distinctive tuba-based theme tune was composed by Wally Stott.
Movie company wants to shoot a science-fiction film using an Army barracks as location, and its soldiers as actors. Of course, the Commander doesn't like it a bit, and persuades the crew to use a nearby haunted house instead.
