Hancock's Half Hour Page 29

There are a couple of episodes of HHH that were actually ruined due to these attention seeking cretins

Sid should have given them a mouthful of signet rings

Thank you much appreciated

Quote: lofthouse @ 21st May 2024, 8:46 PM

There are a couple of episodes of HHH that were actually ruined due to these attention seeking cretins

Sid should have given them a mouthful of signet rings

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Excessive laughter was often cited by BBC radio producers of the time as being a problem in live recordings. Printed guidance and warnings on such matters were actually often provided to audiences as they entered the theatre.

It didn't work clearly!

There was one particular male audience member I recall that was braying like a donkey

It was clear he was doing it so when he heard the show back on the radio at a later date he could pick himself out

That's got worse - it started with the American sheep whooping at every opportunity. Now we have pathetic UK wankers doing the same where there's an audience in the studios.

Quote: Aaron @ 16th May 2024, 7:38 PM

I absolutely adored A Visit To Swansea. I thought it very funny, really finding both cast and writers at the absolute top of their game. Very, very impressed.

The Missing re-recording seemed to have some changes to dialogue. I wonder why that happened?

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That intrigued me very much, too!

It rather cut the legs out, so to speak, from the running gag about bad backs in the rewrite. Was it a matter of sacrificing continuity for funnier standalone jokes?

And Kevin McNally wasn't quite so confident about his ability to do a Welsh accent as Hancock, evidently.

McNally may have been more concerned with not getting cancelled, of course.

The other possibility is it wasn't a conscious edit, but that the surviving script was a slightly earlier draft, and Galton & Simpson had made further last minute changes that weren't documented anywhere except in the programme itself.

Or- gasp! - someone had the audacity to rewrite G&S?

I imagine that sort of thing is bound to happen, if HHH goes beyond 'classic that is repeated word for word' to becoming a sort of genre of comedy-

And given the Scandinavian show, that's certainly possible.

Tour dates & tickets:

www.hambledonproductions.com/productions/59/tickets

One of the classic HHH on tomorrow night BBC4 at 8:30pm - "The Cold", with Tony and Sid at their best, and then to cap that you have the wonderful Patricia Hayes as Mrs Cravatte with weird hat and mystical cures for ailments of all sorts - so, so funny with her twig of horse chestnut with one leaf on it, but I won't spoil the outcome of that scene.

Also, we get to see John Le Mez and Hugh Lloyd

And I thought I would take the opportunity to post again my "Hancock's Half Hour locations" from 2016 for those who may not have seen it, and I notice anyway that those original photos have now disappeared down the plug-hole of Photobucket, when they decided to charge for their service.

THE COLD

If you have ever wondered where the location shots were made when Sid takes Tony for a jog in "The Cold", I think I have finally cracked it with a clue I picked up on another forum, this being the distinctive thatched (!?) building you can see on both screen grabs at the traffic lights on the South Circular Road. The scenes appear to have been made around Barnes railway station in the South London area, which as you will see from the following has, of course, changed dramatically since the early 1960s, and thank you Google Street view saving me having to go to the locations!!

You will see the large road sign has been moved (a newer one of course) that is obscuring the brow of the very long hump back bridge that has to accommodate Barnes railway station, to the other side of Station Road, which is on the right and which has been widened slightly and tidied up. Also, there is a heck of a lot more greenery and trees now nearly 60 years older and a lot of this is making the slope a lot less obvious.

Here they are jogging North along Rocks Lane away from Barnes railway station down the raised section that accommodates the station with the not so wide then Station Road on the right, and here is the same scene today:-

Notice the footpath no longer goes down to Station Road (it now finishes halfway down the slope at a bus stop)

Now they are running in the opposite direction (south) down the same Rocks Lane, again away from Barnes railway station and arrive at the traffic lights on South Circular Road before they turn left into the B306 Queen's Ride, which runs diagonally away from the South Circular.

Here we now see Sid turning left into Queen's Ride.................................

..................followed by Tony............................

............and here's that junction today. The main flow of traffic (vans) you can see is crossing the South Circular Road from Rocks Lane and going south away from London, with the traffic waiting at the lights travelling around the SCR.

.................along which incidentally at about 300/400 metres further down is the shrine to Marc Bolan at the spot where he was killed when the car he was in crashed into a tree.

What happened to East Cheam?

That's very interesting indeed!

Used to drive along there alot on way to my work's depot in Hammersmith. A few decades after Hancock and James ran along there.

Always interesting to see how places change over time, thanks for the snaps!

You're welcome😊