BBC4 to screen Hancock, Steptoe and Howerd dramas
Following its successfully received biopics of Kenneth Williams and Fanny Craddock, BBC4 has announced it is to screen a season of drama based on the lives of British entertainers. The new four-part season will explore the extraordinary lives of Hughie Green, Tony Hancock, Frankie Howerd and Steptoe And Son actors Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell.
Phil Davis, Trevor Eve, Jason Isaccs and Ken Stott have been lined up to star in these one-off dramas, which have been scheduled for spring 2008. The channel promises they will reveal the stories behind some of Britain's best loved television entertainers, and their achievements.
George Entwistle, acting Controller, BBC Four, says: "The season celebrates some of the most enduring icons from the history of British television. The dramas show a different side to the various personalities – sometimes funny, sometimes sad – always surprising and fascinating."
Here are the press releases for the four programmes:
The Curse Of Steptoe
Steptoe And Son remains a landmark in the history of British television. It gave birth to the modern sitcom and transformed its actors - Harry H Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell - into national treasures.The sitcom told the story of two rag-and-bone men trapped together for all eternity. But behind the scenes, out of the public eye, an even stranger story was playing out. The Curse Of Steptoe will uncover an unexpected and incredible tale of life imitating art.
Starring Phil Davis (Five Days) as Wilfrid Brambell and Jason Isaacs (The State Within) as Harry H Corbett, The Curse Of Steptoe is both a hilarious romp through the land of Sixties sitcom and a poignant story of two men, yoked together, unable to escape their inner complexities and desires, or for that matter, each other.
How their personal problems and antipathy helped the show achieve success is one of the most revealing stories from the annals of BBC light entertainment history.
Writer Brian Fillis (Fear Of Fanny) delivers a sharp, witty and moving script based on interviews with colleagues, friends and family of Harry and Wilfrid, and Steptoe writers, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Hancock and Joan
As announced by the BBC last week, Ken Stott (Rebus, Messiah) is to play troubled comic genius Tony Hancock in Hancock & Joan. Also starring Maxine Peake (Cinderella, Shameless) as Joan, the drama charts the final year of Hancock's life and the love affair with his best friend's wife, his battle with drink and his final fateful series in Australia.
Only months after her marriage to Dad's Army favourite John Le Mesurier, Joan Le Mesurier fell in love with his best friend, the godfather of British sitcom, Tony Hancock.
Tony was fresh out of rehab and desperate to resurrect his career with the offer of a new series in Australia. John stood by as Joan and Tony embarked on an obsessive and passionate love affair. Though clearly besotted with Joan, Tony was struggling with drink and violent depression.
After months of turmoil, Joan gives him a final ultimatum – if he makes a go of Australia and keeps off the booze for a year, she will leave John and marry him. Tony left for Australia determined to win Joan over. But tragically he never returned.
Based on Joan Le Mesurier's autobiography Lady Don't Fall Backwards and Edward Joffe's Hancock's Last Stand, this moving 90-minute film tells the story of Hancock and Joan's love affair and its tragic end.
Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than Me
Frankie Howerd is to this day an enduring and celebrated icon of British comedy, and his "thrice nays" and "titter ye not" have been immortalised in the canon of comedy catch-phrases.
However, during Howerd's lifetime his popularity and his moods went up and down more often than a well-placed innuendo. Behind the scenes was a man riddled with professional doubts, conflicted by his homosexuality and wracked with depression.
Still to be cast, Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than Me is the moving, humorous and poignant story of Howerd's fight with his inner demons, as seen through the eyes of his long-term partner Dennis Heymer.
This is the first time that the true story of Howerd's inner life has been told, as he kept his sexuality and relationship with Dennis secret until his death in 1992. The writer Peter Harness has constructed this story from intimate interviews with Dennis himself.
Hughie Green, Most Sincerely
Hughie Green was the avuncular front man of the hugely successful family TV shows Opportunity Knocks and Double Your Money.