Hancock's Half Hour: The Very Best Episodes Volume 1

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With chairs circled around it, we quickly came to miss it when anything happened to it, wondering what we'd done before we had one.

Image shows from L to R: Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock (Tony Hancock), Donor (Frank Thornton), Nurse (June Whitfield). Becoming a figure of legendary status, Hancock has been portrayed by stars such as Alfred Molina and Richard Briers ( Hancock's Last Half Hour) but it was the tragic 2008 film that pulled into sharp focus how a simple miscommunication may have contributed to Tony's untimely death, and was based in part on the book Joan wrote in the 1980s, Lady Don't Fall Backwards, dedicated to both Tony and her husband. The doctors were there to give him a pill if he was depressed to buck him up, or another pill if he was bucked up too far to bring him down.In Sid's Mystery Tours Sid talks Hancock into becoming the director of his guided tours company - but it doesn't even possess a coach. New and familiar characters abound, voiced by a bright mix of performers, including Kat Dennings, Regé-Jean Page, Emma Corrin, Michael Sheen, Kristen Schaal, Brian Cox, John Lithgow, Jeffrey Wright, and so many more, including fan-favorite narrators Simon Vance and Ray Porter.

Instead of the traditional variety mix of sketches, guest stars and musical interludes, the show's humour derived from characters and situations developed in a half-hour storyline. It leads him to camp first in a bus shelter on Clapham Common, and then in a bit of forest rented from Sid. It was always more than just jokes with Hancock: it was all about the characterisation, and finding the humour through these characters. For Arthur Dent, who has only just had his house demolished that morning, this seems already to be more than he can cope with. It's about a man trying to tell you about the awfulness of comedy and how it goes wrong, and how your life goes wrong, and how your marriage goes wrong.

Tony Hancock's premature death in 1968 at the age of forty-four deprived the entertainment world of perhaps the greatest post-war comedian to have emerged from this country. Tony's set is broken and he grits his teeth, determined to spend the night "setless" but not knowing how! A much-used word, karma is loosely understood as a system of checks and balances in our lives, of good actions and bad deeds, of good thoughts and bad intentions. Sid provides lessons for Hancock and enters him into a local dancing Championship Contest, but is forced to become his partner in the competition (in drag)!