mostly david ephgrave

Over the weekend, as a little treat, I attended a screening of three episodes of Hancock's Half Hour at London's Riverside Studios, which was the location of their shooting some sixty-six years earlier; I'm down with the kids (of 1957).  The event was staged by the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society , of which I'm a member, and was the third screening at the venue, though I couldn't make the previous two due to the recent rail strike hoo-ha. So this trip was a case of third-time lucky for me. My last visit to the studios was in 2008, when Glyn and I filmed a promotional interview for our first Edinburgh show, The Balloon Debate (footage I recall seeing once at the time, but never since). Being TV nerds, we were excited to be at the former site of TFI Friday for work reasons. We probably even hummed the opening riff to The Riverboat Song as we walked around the building.  It's no secret that I love Hancock's Half Hour. Why would it be? The writing's timele...

Fifty years ago today, we lost one of our finest comic actors (and my personal favourite), the vastly underrated Tony Hancock.  Hancock's a funny one as far as popular culture is concerned in that, despite being so successful in his time, drawing massive audiences on TV and radio and commanding some of the highest fees of the era, he has probably passed a lot of younger people by. This is a shame, as much of his finest work is just as accessible and enjoyable today; listen to or watch an episode of Hancock’s Half Hour at random and I’d nigh-on guarantee it’ll make you laugh pretty quickly, plus you’d be able to draw parallels between Hancock’s obvious character traits of frustration and exasperation with more modern-day sitcom creations like Basil Fawlty, Father Ted and Alan Partridge. Part of the reason he’s less known to younger audiences is probably due to the fact the poor-quality film-stock of the surviving TV episodes means they're seldom rebroadcast. At l...

Today, I listened to the audio of a lost episode of the TV version of Hancock’s Half Hour that I haven’t heard before (the 'Horror Serial') and it’s testament to how good Galton & Simpson’s writing was and how well the cast brought the dialogue to life that it held up brilliantly without pictures and was just as funny as much of their best work. The episode is included as part of volume one of the BBC’s Hancock Collectibles series, which I bought the other day (using a voucher given to me for my birthday no less) and was a treat to hear. I must have seen and heard pretty much all of their surviving work from this period countless times - not to mention a fair few of the lost episodes that were remade for BBC Radio 4’s excellent ‘The Missing Hancocks’ series (which I attended two recordings of, thanks to the kindness of Kevin Eldon) - so it was a definite treat to be confronted with an episode I’d never experienced. It was a bit like dreaming you were listening to an un...

I had the most glorious, inspiring night tonight, watching a recording of The Missing Hancocks at BBC Broadcasting House.  I was there, thanks to the kindness of Kevin Eldon (AKA Bill Kerr), who snuck me in under his metaphorical jacket. I sent him a text on a whim when I saw they were making another series and he put me and my wife on the guest list. I'm so grateful that he did, as I'm a huge Hancock fan - and often lament to myself that I'd never get the chance to experience the real thing, thanks to being born twenty-four years too late; Damn my parents and their reluctance to procreate.  I can't state enough just how good tonight was. It was inspiring to see such a great cast get their mitts on a fantastic pair of scripts and nail them so perfectly. If it weren't for the half century that's passed, you could be fooled into thinking every member of the original ensemble was performing there before you, though their faces may have changed. It's testament...

One of the main things that kept me sane during my recent Edinburgh run was listening to Hancock's Half Hour.  I've already documented my love of Tony Hancock and Galton & Simpson on this blog; a number of times in fact. The work of those three men was glorious and timeless. Only today, I was listening to an episode when I realised that it first aired sixty-two years ago, yet it still read perfectly and had me laughing throughout. It's so well-written that it doesn't matter if you don't get all of the cultural references, as the structure of the script and the cast's delivery is pitch perfect that it makes you laugh regardless. I doubt I'll ever grow tired of it.  "But how did it keep you sane?", I hear you ask (if only as a device for me to get to the point). Every morning, as I got ready to go do my show, I'd stream an episode on iPlayer or YouTube; using it as a comedic warm-up to put me in a good mood for the day. It was the perfect b...

Yesterday, I listened to the second episode in BBC Radio 4’s current series ‘The Missing Hancocks’, and loved it. I make no secret of the fact that I’m a huge fan of both Galton & Simpson and Tony Hancock. It’s something I’ve discussed here before . Together, they were responsible for some of my favourite comedy of all time. Watching or listening to an episode of Hancock’s Half Hour is a fail-safe for putting me in a good mood. So much so that I’ve started listening to an episode every morning in the bath, to start the day with a positive kick. (Picture it.) When I heard tell of a handful of lost episodes being rerecorded by different actors, I was concerned. How could they make this work? I knew the writing would stand up on its own two feet – Galton & Simpson’s material is faultless – but how could you have a Hancock’s Half Hour without the real Huh…Huh…Huh…Hancock? Not to mention Sid, Bill, Kenneth, Andr é e, Moira, Miss Pugh and the rest. I needn’t have wor...

It would probably come as no surprise to learn that I am a devourer of the classic comedy sitcom. It’s been the case since as early as junior school, when I kept two scrapbooks: one devoted to The Beatles and the other to Blackadder. Any time either a Fab or a ‘Blab’ appeared in a newspaper, the article would be carefully cut out and Pritt-stuck into the appropriate tome – often with my own little handwritten notes alongside it. My first ever gig was pre-assembly at the St. Nicholas JMI school, playing the Blackadder theme on an upright piano as my fellow students filed in. I was obsessed with the dry, sarcastic wit of Rowan Atkinson – and desperately wanted some of it for myself. I managed to convince my junior school friends that the BBC were going to make a series I was writing called 'March! Jenkins' (an idea lovingly ripped from 'Blackadder Goes Forth') – and spend many a lunch break drilling them through scenes from it. I was a megalomaniac e...