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

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Waking up 117 years later, Bob discovers his mind has been uploaded into a sentient space probe with the ability to replicate itself. Hancock'a Half Hour was a seminal radio show, that was key to the popularity of radio comedy especially for the BBC.

Damaris Hayman, a close friend of Tony's, reflected: "He was the Everest among the peaks of the comedians - very intelligent, but a very sad man. A famous scene from the classic Hancock's Half Hour episode Twelve Angry Men is a perfect example of this. A member of his troupe, Bill Sutton, remembered him being extremely nervous, but they kept him on because he was fun to be with; everybody liked him.

I first became acquainted with Tony Hancock in 2001 when my father ( a huge fan of Hancock ) played for me an audiobook of the original radio series. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Hancock was very earnest in his preparation for a unique innovation in comedy - The Bedsitter was the first example of a classic sitcom bottle episode. Among these hilarious Half Hours, Hancock enters an eating competition; sets out to save a local landmark; becomes the director of Sid's guided tours company and enjoys an evening of abstract verse with his avant-garde friends.

Williams was ultimately only a relatively small part of the iconic Hancock collective; at its heart, a new and exciting double act was emerging between Tony Hancock and Sid James. Tony Hancock, Sid James, Bill Kerr and Warren Mitchell star in two classic episodes written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, which showcase the master of misery at his best. In fact, long as these records and tapes exist and are listened to, it's just as if they were still with us.There’s something quite exciting about the live quality of this show, and it is even more powerful now when we’ve all become used to technological sophistication and smooth packaging in our listening. It is something that is almost impossible to define - how a slight nuance of performance can change everything. 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. About the reviewer: Magdalena Ball is the author of Sleep Before Evening, The Art of Assessment, Quark Soup, and, in collaboration with Carolyn Howard-Johnson, Cherished Pulse and She Wore Emerald Then. The episodes are certainly low tech by today’s standards, but the characters themselves provide enough visual cues and background noise to entice the modern listener.

Then he brings the house down with an apparent mistake, saying 'in our own personal wives' instead of 'lives'; he almost breaks into laughter himself before continuing his shouts of 'Nay! After all, the public had only heard Hancock for the past few years and the comedian hadn't performed in front of the cameras before. He was also a snob who aspired to be social climbing but was let down by his own gullibility and stupidity or the burdening presence of his shady friend Sidney Balmoral James.In this episode Sid and Tony become increasingly desperate to watch television, so much so that they casually wander into a peculiar family's house, all of whom are too transfixed by their own set to notice the two interlopers. If you are in Australia or New Zealand (DVD Region 4), note that almost all DVDs distributed in the UK by the BBC and 2entertain are encoded for both Region 2 and Region 4. Hancock's Half Hour pioneered every comedic genre you could imagine, almost effortlessly hitting every mark, but its true deft was introducing intelligent, subtle and surreal humour to the comedy landscape, as we see in the 1959 episode The Set That Failed. After the TV series Hancock's star waned rapidly -- he should have stuck to Sid James and crew -- but he was too much the egotistical star.