Manville Tarrant

Hancock's Half Hour is a BBC television comedy series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James. The final series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development.

Thirty-five years after his premature death in 1968 Tony Hancock was voted Britain's best-ever comedy performer. Here's a chance to see what made him so special - the surviving episodes from Series 2 and Series 3 of Hancock's Half Hour, plus a Christmas special. Episodes include: "The Alpine Holiday", "Air Steward Hancock", "The Last Of The Many", "The Lawyer: The Crown vs Sidney James", "Competitions: How To Win Money And Influence People" and "There's An Airfield At The Bottom Of My Garden". The Christmas special is "Hancock's Forty-Three Minutes: The East Cheam Repertory Company".

Classic British drama about the residents of a large terrace house in London between Christmas 1938 and September 1939. Percy Boon lives with his mother in a shared rented house with an assortment of characters in central London. Although well intentioned, he becomes mixed up with gangsters and murder. The story focuses on the effects this has on Percy and the other residents.

In this crime drama, three gem thieves must get out of London after they kill a man. Friction between the men increases as they hide out on a farm and then get back on the road. Trouble ensues when one of the three begins suspecting the others of treachery.

In this crime drama, a man learns that he has six months left to live, and before he dies he decides to get revenge against the man responsible for his incarceration. First he hires a man to kill him and frame the traitor. Later the fellow learns that he is not sick after all. Fortunately his hit man died. Later the man he wants to avenge has a final showdown with him. A struggle ensues and the fellow kills his enemy in self-defense.