This is the book of the film and was based very closely on Ray and Alan’s film script. Issued in 1961 by Mayfair books, the synopsis on the inside front cover of the book reads as follows: He was a rebel against conformity. He didn't want to catch the eight-thirty-two to the City each morning all his life. He had talent, artistic talent, and he pined for the Bohemian life of an artist. A hilarious sequence of events sends him off to Paris, where the glib patter of his native London captivates the artistic fringe of Montparnasse, who acclaim him (not always soberly) as a genius. And soon it is believed. Then follows a joyful life, with the wildest of parties with Existentialists who sleep in diving suits, dye their hair green, paint their pianos like Scottish tartans ... and do everything except catch trains for a living. Overwhelming? Not for a rebel who has fought for an existence in the primitive wilds of London's Suburbia. Like a duck taking to water, the Rebel takes to the new life and riotously makes it his own. This book is difficult to find these days in good condition.

Published in 1966, the World Drama Series presented a wide-range of plays for schools including ‘plays written for the Greeks in the 5th Century BC through to plays written for English Television recently.’ Although these books could be read in class, they were also intended for schools to perform in front of an audience. For example, the book advises that you will need: - actors; - backstage workers; - makers of scenery, property and costumes; - an electircian; and - a front-of-house organiser The plays included in this edition were all from the Comedy Playhouse Series which Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote between leaving Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe & Son which was itself initially a script in the Comedy Playhouse Series. The book has this to say on presenting the plays: ‘Alan Simpson and Ray Galton have written an enormous number of highly successful television plays, the most widely-popular being the series Steptoe & Son. They also created and wrote Hancock’s Half Hour on B.B.C. Television, plus several series for Frankie Howerd. The plays in this volume of the World Drama Series were written by Simpson and Galton for a B.B.C. television series entitled Comedy Playhouse. The plays have been adapted for stage presentation, but we hope you will enjoy them whether you read them in the classrooms, use them for acting-practice, tape-record them, or perform them for an audience.

A biography of the comedian Tony Hancock, whose troubled life ended in suicide. The book is co-written by his widow, and incorporates recollections by personalities such as Kenneth Williams, Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes.

Here, in paperback for the first time, are five of the classic scripts that, during the seven years 1954-1961, made Tony Hancock Britain's most hilarious and best-loved comedian.

For fifteen years Tony Hancock was the best-loved comedian in Britain, "a massive caricature of mid-century man." On stage, film, and TV he created some of the finest comedy of his generation. But in the summer of 1968 he took his own life. Philip Oakes - his friend and collaborator - seeks to explain Hancock's greatness and why the good times turned bad. Other books in the series incklude Penelope Gilliatt on Jacques Tati and John Fisher on George Formby.

Many people consider Tony Hancock to be the finest comic actor of them all. November 2004 sees the 50th anniversary of his best-loved work, Hancock's Half-Hour, which began as a radio series, penned by the writers Galton and Simpson. Two years later, the first of 58 TV instalments had been screened, and Hancock's genius, coupled with Galton and Simpson's brilliant scripts, ensured that the show soon became a yardstick against which all subsequent British sitcoms have since been measured. Amazingly, no book has ever been written about the show. Fully authorised by Galton and Simpson, Fifty Years of Hancock's Half-Hour is a full history of the show, including how the show came about, behind-the-scenes stories from Hancock's fellow artists and members of the crew and production team, and the story of its demise. Incorporating extracts from the shows, the book will also feature photographs and a full listing of the radio and TV episodes.

Without Hancock there would have been no Steptoe, no Alf Garrett, no Alan Partridge, no David Brent. One of Britain's most innovative comedians and arguably its most popular, he united the nation in laughter with `Hancock's Half Hour,' the show that established the situation comedy. But behind Hancock's success lurked a tendency to self destruction that would compromise his later years. Prone to professional insecurity and a quest for perfection, he gradually detached himself from the writers, agents and actors who had played an essential role in his success. Now forty years later after Hancock's death, John Fisher explores his turbulent life and tragic death of a still revered performer. In this first full appraisal of both his life and work, Fisher sheds new light on Hancock's fall from grace, examining with sensitivity what went wrong and questioning whether his suicide was inevitable. At the same time, his unprecedented access to the Hancock family and its archives - together with interviews with friends and colleagues, several of whom have spoken for publication for the first time - add to the celebration of this comedy hero. `What kind of Fool?' will redefine the Hancock legacy, reaffirming Hancock's body of work on stage, radio and television, as unsurpassed by a single British comedian.

Regarded as the best radio and TV comic of his era, Tony Hancock was a man whose star burned brightly in the eyes and ears of millions before his untimely death in 1968. Now, forty years on, critically acclaimed biographer John Fisher brings the first fully authorised account of his life. Tony Hancock was one of post-war Britain’s most popular comedians – his radio show ‘Hancock’s Half Hour’ would clear the streets as whole families tuned in to listen. His peerless timing and subtle changes in intonation marked Hancock out as a comic genius. His character ‘Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock’ was an amplification of his own persona, a pompous prat whose dreams of success are constantly thwarted. The original British loser that we recognise in Victor Meldrew and Alan Partridge. Wonderfully supported by a cast including Sid James, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams, and working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock became a huge star. The show was commisioned for TV, showcasing his talent for hilarious facial expression, and he became the first British comedian to earn a thousand pounds a week. Behind Tony Hancock’s success however hid the self-destructive behaviour that plagued him all his life. Prone to self-doubt, and wanting to be the star of his own show, he got rid of James, and finally dismissed Galton and Simpson who had created the platform for his success. His private life was wracked by his ever increasing alcoholism and bouts of depression, and his relationships shattered by his capacity for violence. His ratings fell and, feeling washed up and alone after divorcing his second wife, he committed suicide in an Australian hotel room in 1968. Now, forty years after his death John Fisher explores the turbulent life of a man regarded by his peers as one of the greatest British comics to have ever lived.

With New York in the clutches of a despicable typist dropper, only Johnny Oxford – the city’s most fearless private investigator – can throw a searing, blistering spotlight on Manhattan’s blackened streets. In this smashing story of gambling, gunmen and hoodlums, Darcy Sarto will thrill and excite you from start to finish.Inspired by the Hancock’s Half Hour episode The Missing Page, this brand new work has been written with kind permission from the show’s original writers and the BBC.

The extraordinary and ultimately tragic story of a man whom many still regard as Britain's greatest ever comedian has been covered by other writers and this work is not an attempt to replicate that, instead this book explores the connection between the man himself, Tony Hancock, and his adopted home town of Bournemouth and examines how the people he met and the experiences he underwent all came together to fashion him into the performer he became using a blend of geography, social history and show business. Almost the whole of his childhood and early youth was spent in hostelry-type accommodation where, in his parents' pub and later hotel, people from the world of show business made up their core clientele. Tony's father Jack, himself a talented entertainer, personally played host to many celebrities returning from their shows in the town and young Tony was much influenced by this. His homes unconsciously became the perfect training ground for the observation of the human foibles and idiosyncrasies which contributed to and influenced the kind of comedy that he and his legendary writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, would later fashion with "Hancock's Half Hour"

Written by Dave Miles, a former senior member of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, Spiral is a personal journey into the late, great comic, with reflections from many years investigating and researching the TV and radio star. Alongside transcriptions of a number of exclusive interviews with Tony's friends and colleagues are photographs of a plethora of Hancock-related items and ephemera, plus many of Tony himself - most of which have never been published before. Published to mark the 50th anniversary of Hancock's suicide, only 200 copies have been produced.