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Very Nearly An Armful: The Galton and Simpson Story

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BBC Radio 4 Extra - Very Nearly An Armful: The Galton and Simpson Story

Stephen Merchant celebrates the writing partnership of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

4 Extra Debut. Stephen Merchant celebrates Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, the late, great writing duo behind 'Hancock' and 'Steptoe and Son'. From December 2009.

Stephen Merchant celebrates Ray Galton & Alan Simpson - the late, great writing duo behind Hancock and Steptoe & Son. 

After meeting in a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1949, the pair started writing for the hospital's radio station and within two years they were writing for the UK's top comic talent. In a move that changed comedy forever, the pair insisted that comedy should reflect life as it is. The show they created, Hancock's Half Hour, was so popular that pubs and shops complained that it was causing them to lose business. 

They followed up Hancock's Half Hour with Steptoe And Son, a show that was so popular that it reached 28 million viewers and Harold Wilson asked it to be rescheduled on the night of the 1964 general election. The series was not without controversy: third episode The Piano provoked complaints from Mary Whitehouse and even lead to questions being asked in the House of Commons.

As well as their most high profile series, Hancock and Steptoe, the pair wrote for a who's who of comedy including Frankie Howerd, Peter Sellers, Arthur Lowe, Warren Mitchell and Les Dawson.

Ray Galton died in October 2018, one year after Alan Simpson, but the 600+ scripts they wrote for radio, television and cinema remain immensely important. They brought social realism to British comedy and helped lay the foundations for modern day classics like The Office.  

As well as hearing from the duo, contributors to the documentary include David Mitchell, Ben Elton, Damaris Hayman and the late Denis Norden. Archive interviewees include Tony Hancock, Sid James and Harry H Corbett.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 2009.

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