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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

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The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: British Film Comedians

The Essay: British Film Comedians: Episode 4: Tony Hancock

Heffer on British Film

Episode 4

Episode 4: Tony Hancock

British Film Comedians

Tony Hancock

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Columnist and historian Simon Heffer on the life and work of comic actor Tony Hancock.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses comic actor Tony Hancock, whose life encompassed tragedy and comedy in equal measure.

A further chance to hear the columnist and historian Simon Heffer with his 2015 Essays on much-loved comic actors of mid-20th century British film.

4 of 5: Tony Hancock.

Tragedy and comedy have often shared the billing in Simon Heffer's series on British comic actors in mid-20th century film, but never more so than in the case of Tony Hancock.

Hancock is warmy recalled for his embodiment on radio and television of a self-deluded failure, a man whose life has been an odyssey of constant frustration. His role in film was less succesful and Simon Heffer examines the reasons why.

After critics noted the contributions of both his gifted screenwriters, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and of his main sidekick, Sid James, Hancock refused to work with them. Then he fired his agent.

Simon Heffer considers the strengths but also the weaknesses of his two largely forgotten films - The Rebel and The Punch and Judy Man - and the sad demise of a brilliant performer whose influences are still apparent today. 

Producer : Beaty Rubens.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the lives and work of British comic actors.

Columnist and historian Simon Heffer discusses the lives and work of British comic actors of mid-20th century cinema

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