Tony Hancock

[DB7]

Revealed: Tony Hancock screenplay that the troubled star turned down

The Day Off, by writing team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, was unearthed during research for a new biography of the duo
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 August 2011 23.38 BST


Tony-Hancock-Alan-Simpson-007.jpg
Tony Hancock, Alan Simpson and Ray Galton in 1964
Tony Hancock, left, with Alan Simpson, centre, and Ray Galton, the creators of Hancock’s Half-Hour, in 1964: believed to be the last photograph ever taken of the three of them together. Photograph: M McKeown/Getty Images

They wrote some of the funniest, most memorable British comedy of the 20th century. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's scripts for Tony Hancock had lines so brilliant, characters so absurd and jokes so sublime that they embedded themselves in the national consciousness.


Fans should prepare themselves for a treat, though, because the best may be yet to come. The Observer can reveal that Galton and Simpson completed a feature-length film script for Hancock that has never been made public. The Day Off, the gut-wrenching tale of a hapless bus conductor who just can't get anything right, has been hailed as a lost masterpiece and "the holy grail of comedy".

"It's probably the best thing they ever wrote," said Christopher Stevens, the author and journalist who stumbled on the yellowing pages at the back of a filing cabinet in Galton's house. "It's not just very, very funny and archetypally Hancock – you can hear his voice in every line – but it's also desperately sad. They'd reached this artistic peak which they developed with Steptoe and Son, where they made you laugh through tears."

Dreamed up in 1961 by the writers of Hancock's Half Hour and the comic's debut film The Rebel, The Day Off was supposed to be the second movie that would launch him as a global star. But to Galton and Simpson's disappointment, Hancock rejected it, asking for something "more international". Before long he had split with his agent, Beryl Vertue, and, by implication, with the writers as well. It was the start of a long decline that would end in his suicide in 1968.

Hurt by Hancock's dismissal of their work, Galton and Simpson put the script to the backs of their minds and moved on to other projects, such as Steptoe and Son, the enduringly popular sitcom, which began the following year. The Day Off took on a quasi-mythical status – most comedy historians assumed it had never progressed beyond a sketch. "And that was it, really: we didn't think any more of it," said Galton, who is now 81. Simpson, who is the same age, added: "When we did split with him, which was soon after, that was just put in the forget-me box and that's where it's been all the time."

The script was rediscovered last year when Stevens found an unmarked folder in Galton's cellar and asked Malcolm Chapman, a comedy historian who had been collating the archives, what it was. When he was told, said Stevens, he "dropped it on the floor. I couldn't quite process what Malcolm was saying."

Stevens – whose book on Galton and Simpson, The Masters of Sitcom: From Hancock to Steptoe, is published this week – was bowled over by the script, which comes complete with camera angles and scene-settings and tells the story of an under-confident romantic in a 1960s industrial town whose day off sees him become involved in a series of slip-ups, embarrassments and a failed attempt at love. "It should be filmed. I'm quite certain nothing is further from Ray and Alan's mind at the moment, but in a wonderfully perfect world it would be recreated as a 60s movie," he said.

Paul Merton, who has remade some episodes of Hancock's Half Hour, and Jack Dee were examples of contemporary comedians who could be suited to the leading role, he suggested.

Speaking to the Observer, Dee said the comparison with Hancock was "flattering" and that he would "love to read" the script. However, he warned that an actor would have to be careful about taking on such a role. Galton and Simpson, he added, "were brilliant. They had such subtlety to them, as well as being able to do such big comedy, and that's quite rare in comedy writers, I think."

Stevens, who includes a section of the script in his book, is right to say that the duo are not yet keen for The Day Off to be made. "You've got to bear in mind that neither of us have read it for 50 years. We've got to get it out and re-read it," said Simpson. He added: "I suspect it's too long, because everything we wrote in those days was too long. It probably needs half an hour taken out of it." Uncut, Stevens reckons The Day Off would run to over three hours.

For the writers, Hancock remains a genius. "He was a great performer. He never put a foot wrong," said Galton. "Anything we wrote for him he could read perfectly… His first reading of a script would be absolutely correct. We never had to say: 'No, no, not this way Tony, do it like that.' Never."

Although they do not appear to want to linger on the issue, there is no sign of bitterness about the film that Hancock turned down. Galton said that they had "never got around to discussing" what Hancock had thought of the script, and that they had little contact with him afterwards. The second series of Steptoe, they recalled, had opened on the BBC the same evening as the first episode of Hancock's eponymous, and critically savaged, ATV series. "It was all very sad from his point of view," said Galton.

Stevens said: "They pick their words very carefully. They don't want to impute blame to Tony because they know he was going through awful times emotionally. And they loved him."

Christopher Stevens will interview Galton and Simpson on stage at the Lyttelton Theatre in the National Theatre on London's South Bank at 6pm on Thursday 1 September. Tickets cost £4

[DB7]

Hancock's half-finished: how Galton and Simpson revived their lost movie

They made TV history together and were planning their next film – until Tony Hancock rejected their script. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson reveal why The Day Off is now back on

Ray Galton and Alan Simpson
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 January 2012 21.31 GMT

The best review we ever had wasn't from a critic. It was from an artist, Lucian Freud. He said that The Rebel was the greatest film ever made about modern art. The 1961 movie was the first, and sadly the only, film we made with Tony Hancock. It's the story of an office clerk, played by Hancock, who believes himself to be a great but undiscovered artist. When he's fired from his job he moves to Paris, in the hope that the art world will recognise him for the genius he is. Of course, being Hancock, he's a terrible painter, but his ability to act like a genius persuades a group of fashionable young artists that he might be the real deal. When he accidentally gets the credit for a better artist's work, he finds himself feted as the Next Big Thing, with inevitably disastrous results.

It's an idea that runs through a lot of our work: the gap between people's idea of themselves and how the rest of the world sees them. When we were growing up, the most popular comedies were films like The Road To series with Bob Hope, which were about very street-smart, wisecracking heroes making their way to somewhere exotic and far-flung. But we never felt that life was like that. We were much more interested in the comedy of attitude: people's attitude towards their life and situations. Failure is a lot more funny than success, and Hancock's failure was a lot more funny still, because he played it so brilliantly.

The Rebel did well at the box office, and Hancock was nominated for a Bafta as most promising newcomer (to leading film roles). At that time, the film world was rather snobbish about television actors, but Hancock was very ambitious. He didn't just want a career in British film: he wanted to be an international star. So we worked with him on various ideas, including an English adaptation of the Oscar-nominated French film The Sheep Has Five Legs, from 1954. Hancock would have played a man with four brothers, each of whom was successful in a different business. Tony tries his hand at each and manages to ruin them all.

But the idea Hancock really responded to was The Day Off. We'd all been hugely impressed by Monsieur Hulot's Holiday, Jacques Tati's wordless 1953 classic, about a good-natured pipe-smoking Frenchman at a seaside resort. Nothing much happens in it and what does happen is not very happy, but, at the same time it's very funny and there's so much warmth to the character. We liked Tati's other films, too, partly because they were so beautifully shot, but also because they weren't over-plotted. Most British comedies at that time depended on a very farcical situation, but Hulot was all about character, which was much more interesting to us. The Day Off is about just that: a London bus conductor on his one day off in the week, from the moment he wakes up to the moment he goes to bed. And in that one day, he manages to cause offence, create chaos, and (very nearly) fall in love.

Hancock loved the idea, so we wrote the whole script in just under two months and sent it to him. And then there was silence. Silence was never good. It usually meant that he was avoiding something. So eventually we called him and asked what he thought of it. "What do you think?" he asked. And it's probably at that point that we knew he wouldn't do it.

We've talked a lot over the years about why he wouldn't do it. Part of it was that he wanted an international career, and maybe felt that The Day Off was too parochial, too English. Then again, his next film was The Punch and Judy Man, and you can't get more English than that. (The film told the story of a seaside puppeteer driven to distraction by his social-climbing wife). At the same time he also fired his agent, Beryl Vertue, who was (and is) a great friend of ours, so perhaps it was his way of telling us that he didn't want us to work together any more. We were disappointed, of course, because Hancock was the best comic actor in the business. But then, if he hadn't turned us down at that point we'd never have written Steptoe and Son.

The Day Off sat in a filing cabinet in Ray's basement for almost 50 years, until Christopher Stevens discovered it last summer while writing a book about us. The Masters of Sitcom. Now it will be performed, and has been optioned to become a film. Comedy needs an audience, and we're delighted The Day Off has found one at last.

[GRAEME]

Great story - and I do hope the film sees the light of day. But please, no TH impersonations - are you reading this Merton! Let it stand as an original in its own right.

[Windthrop]

There was an interview with Ray and Alan about script and working with Hancock in general on Broadcasting House on Sunday. Worth listenng to IMHO and there is a reading from the script by the actor Tom Goodman-Hill who takes part in the BFI reading.

BBC iPlayer - Broadcasting House: 22/01/2012

[Mr Sloane]

I suspect we will need a re-write as the majority of today's audience would not know what a bus conductor was .

[Windthrop]

I suspect we will need a re-write as the majority of today's audience would not know what a bus conductor was .

Make him a train conductor, or whatever they call them

[alan french]

Hi,
Actually, I thought that the last time Hancock, Galton and Simpson were photographed, was after the split. Tony was keen to do a live stage show about Noah. However, Simpson and Galton could see problems, and the idea was dropped.

I am pleased that there is reference to the clash between Steptoe & Son, and Hancok's ITV comedy show. This is very rarely, if at all, mentioned in documentaries.

But lastly and not least, I am surprised and delighted about this film script. Whether it is made into a film set in the past present or future, I hope it is treated with respect. Great news!

Alan French.

[Windthrop]

Hi,
Actually, I thought that the last time Hancock, Galton and Simpson were photographed, was after the split. Tony was keen to do a live stage show about Noah. However, Simpson and Galton could see problems, and the idea was dropped.

I am pleased that there is reference to the clash between Steptoe & Son, and Hancok's ITV comedy show. This is very rarely, if at all, mentioned in documentaries.

But lastly and not least, I am surprised and delighted about this film script. Whether it is made into a film set in the past present or future, I hope it is treated with respect. Great news!

Alan French.

srfg.jpg

Yes they were pictured together after the split - as said earlier they still admired TH. Sid James worked with TH on a audio remake of some of the TV HHHs in the mid sixties.

The BBC Hancocks were repeated regularly during the 60s which didn't help the prospects of the ITV ones. Australia didn't see the ITV ones

[cassidy]

Loved Hancock. My personal favourite TV episode from all the wonderful shows was the one where he has seven draws on his football pools coupon with one match to play and him and Sid take over the management of the team. Hilarious.

[alan french]

Hi,
I am very pleased this thread was started, because a question that I have been meaning to ask has been answered.

I have heard some audio in which it is not Hugh LLoyd in the cast. And yet he was in the television version of what I listened to. It confirms what I suspected. Tony and Sid did work again. I also read that he telphoned Kenneth Williams, who was on the Carry On set at Pinewood Studios, to see if he would be willing to read out from one of the 'Half Hour' scripts. Kenneth declined, as it was to be that night, and therefore would not be re-hearsed. Therefore most un-professional.

My favourite episode is a radio one. Tony's life is threatened and his fiends go off, leaving him alone at 23 Railway Cuttings.

Although I hope that the film is made of this newly discovered script, the problem will be, does the princible actor act in the style of Tony Hancock, or, will he portray the role totally different?

I view the future with interest.

Alan French.