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...

This afternoon, I was lucky enough to attend the recording of the last two remaining lost Hancock's Half Hour episodes for the BBC Radio 4 series The Missing Hancocks (my third time in the audience, man & boy), which was once again performed pitch-perfectly by Kevin McNally and the cast and left me feeling suitably inspired and uplifted as I exited Broadcasting House and made my way back to the tube at Oxford Circus. I must admit visiting the BBC always gives me a bit of a lift, as the child inside still can't help but be excited by the many inspirational ghosts that occupy the building, metaphorically speaking (subject to a proper paranormal assessment); I've only been to Broadcasting House once in a work context - to do a radio interview for the Buddy Holly show I was in - and went to Television Centre once in a non-audience-member capacity - for a meeting with a producer with Glyn - but the part of me that longs to be on the other side of the mic there is always ke...

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...

Tonight I was lucky enough to attend another recording of the Radio 4 series 'The Missing Hancocks', thanks to the generosity of the splendid Kevin Eldon, who snuck me and my wife in under his metaphorical jacket once again. I've mentioned here before just how impressed I've been by the series, which manages to capture the tone of the show perfectly, with scary accuracy; even the banter between the cast as they made the odd slip-up during the recording felt much like how you'd imagine Tony, Bill and Sid would respond if they had made the same mistakes first time around. It has just the right amount of fun to it, and the combination of the excellent writing and Kevin McNally's spot-on rendition of The Lad Himself still manages to entertain a live audience despite last being performed sixty-three years ago; proof that good comedy doesn't date.  They were recording two lost Christmas episodes tonight, which were both a lot ...

Thursday morning’s a time I look forward to, as the episode of Hancock’s Half Hour that was broadcast that week becomes available to listen to on iPlayer, and consequently becomes the soundtrack to my bath. Today was no different, with this week’s instalment being the frighteningly appropriate ‘The Election Candidate'. In the episode, Tony is convinced to stand for parliament as a celebrity candidate (*cough* Donald Trump *cough*) and while it’s definitely one of the best - though let’s face it, pretty much all programmes that exist have stood the test of time wonderfully - my favourite moment has to be when Hancock is asked who’ll he’ll vote for, before he’s convinced to through his own hat in the ring. “Neither of them,” he replies. “I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing ‘get knotted’ in”. (Some things never change.) The episode was first broadcas...

I unwound the good old-fashioned way tonight, by watching the film Carry on Cabby.  (The interchangeable double rr and bb combo-pack in the title is pleasingly symmetrical, so well done them.)  I've mentioned here before how I'm a big fan of Sid James, particularly in the late Fifties / early Sixties Hancock's Half Hour era. It's often forgotten just how subtle a comic actor he was, when he wasn't forced into a corner by the subject matter of his late-Carry On era. He's particularly enjoyable when he's in the company of Hattie Jacques, when years of working together makes their chemistry effortless. Good quality old-school comic performances like these often inspire me, giving me the fire to want to do the same sort of stuff myself. They remind how fun comedy can be; a simple fact I often forget. That's why I listened to an episode of the radio Hancock series every day before doing my show in Edinburgh; the quality of the writing and the comedic turn...

I very much enjoyed BBC4’s remake of the Hancock’s Half Hour episode The New Neighbour, which aired as part of their current Lost Sitcoms season tonight. I’ve written here before of how excellent I thought the Kevin McNally-fronted radio series The Missing Hancocks was, thanks largely to McNally’s note-perfect performance as ‘The Lad Himself’. His attention to detail is extraordinary, managing to get Tony’s intonation, timing and mannerisms right, without descending to the point of becoming a one-dimensional impression. It was clearly a labour of love from a huge fan of the man I’m also a huge fan of, and must have been the dream job. Likewise, Kevin Eldon’s reading of Bill Kerr and Robin Sebastian’s of Kenneth Williams in the radio series were eerily spot on. The other huge point that rang throughout tonight’s programme was just how exceptional Galton & Simpson’s writing is. Their choice of language is so vivid and creative, and has barely age...

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...

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...