Acting
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.
An offbeat revue of quickfire sketches in the 'Cribbins style', this fast-moving mixture of comedy and song (including chart hits Hole in the Ground, Gossip Calypso, and Right Said Fred) featured a gallery of outrageous characters in a myriad of seemingly inexhaustible situations! Bank clerk, burglar, tramp, librarian, cowboy and even spaceman – Cribbins is all these, and many more!
Francis Bigger, a notorious charlatan who tours the country lecturing on the subject of mind over matter, slips off the platform in the middle of his performance and ends up in hospital under the care of Dr Tinkle. The hospital is about to enter a period of total chaos.
Norman Pitkin wants to be a policeman like his father was, but he fails the height test (amongst others). One day he gets out his father's old uniform and "walks the beat". This leads to a level of chaos that only Pitkin could cause
Norman Truscott is a store worker who dreams of stardom. Vernon Carew is a singer whose star is fading. Vernon manages to get a recording of Norman singing and passes it off as himself.
Doctors Burke and Hare leave the confines of St Swithins for the world of general practice, stopping off on the way as patients at the Foulness Anti-cold Unit. Hare then takes up a position as junior in a well-healed G.P.'s surgery while Burke continues to sow his doctorial wild oats.
Ebenezer Scrooge is a misery on Christmas, not allowing people money or doing anything to share Christmas cheer around his employees or acquaintances. While Scrooge is visited by three ghosts we see how his penny pinching has affected those around him.
A psychopathic killer murders three girls before police catch him.
