Tony Hancock 100

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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Comedy

A collection of programmes marking the centenary of Tony Hancock's birth: 12/05/1924.

Tony Hancock 100: Calling All Forces (1952) & Star Bill (1954) Sketches

Calling All Forces (1952) & Star Bill (1954) Sketches

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Tony Hancock 100, Calling All Forces (1952) & Star Bill (1954) Sketches

Tony Hancock in a lost sketch from Calling All Forces (1952), and two Star Bill sketches.

4 Extra Debut. Tony Hancock stars in a rediscovered sketch from Calling All Forces in 1952, and two sketches from Star Bill in 1954.

Radio 4 Extra celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of comic actor Tony Hancock – born 12th May 1924 - with a collection of rarely heard and previously lost radio programmes.

Introducing the shows, Jim Lee is joined by Martin Gibbons, president of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, who have helped find some of the lost tapes.

Tony Hancock stars in sketches from the BBC Light Programme’s Calling All Forces and Star Bill. 

In a previously lost sketch from the Calling All Forces (25.02.1952), Tony Hancock reprises his role as the tutor to Peter Brough's ventriloquial doll, Archie Andrews, in Educating Archie, grandiosely having the “pleasure of telling you the story of my life”. 

Tony Hancock developed the character of 'Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock' – a version of himself he played in Hancock’s Half Hour, through the many iterations of the BBC Light Programme’s variety show Star Bill (Forces All Star Bill, All Star Bill), also written by Hancock Half Hour creators, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

In two surviving sketches from Star Bill (21.03.1954) from the BBC archive we hear Tony Hancock first welcome unsuspecting guests to the “Seaview Boarding House. Proprietor A. Hancock”. Played by Graham Clark and Moira Lister, the couple are welcomed to this  “….rat trap….I mean...suntrap”. 

In the second sketch, Tony Hancock’s soak in the bath is disturbed when Moira Lister asks Graham Stark and Tony to help her move some furniture. She leaves out one vital piece of information, that Tony’s not best pleased with: “the piano? That bloomin great heavy walnut piece…."

Sketch from Calling All Forces, introduced by Ted Ray and starring Tony Hancock, first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in February 1952.  
Episode writers: Bob Monkhouse and Denis Goodwin. Tony Hancock performing his own material. 
Producers: John Hooper & Leslie Bridgmont.

Surviving sketches from Star Bill, starring Tony Hancock, Graham Stark and Moira Lister, first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1954.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Producer: Dennis Main Wilson.

***
Many thanks to the Bob Monkhouse Archive/Kaleidoscope who found the lost 'Calling All Forces' 1952 sketch, and provided it to the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society, for use in BBC Radio 4 Extra's Hancock 100 celebration.

Tony Hanock 100
Presenter: Jim Lee
Production Co-ordinator: Andrew Jupp
Producer: Peter McHugh

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