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| Sad funny man |
If Little Darwin can get its record player to work , the den will soon echo to the sound of British comedian Tony Hancock performing in 1961 . A star of radio, television and film , Hancock suicided in Sydney on June 25, 1968 , aged 44, leaving behind notes, one saying " things just seem to go too wrong too many times ." There were vodka bottles and tablets in the flat .
His radio show , Hancock's Half Hour, also on the "glass screen ", was avidly listened to by this blogger . In the show he played a struggling comedian aspiring to be an actor . Over the years he worked with talented British entertainers such as Sidney James , Kenneth Williams , Hattie Jacques , John Le Mesurier .
The sleeve on the above record , found in Townsville , shows an apprehensive Anthony "Aloysius" Hancock , described as a celebrated comedian and middle-class beatnik , who had more than made his mark on the Australian public . His half hour said to have been one of the most popular radio shows beamed over the air in Australia .
The zany blurb went on to say that in 1960, after months and months of deliberation , it was decided to take the plunge and see what the reaction would be of the Australian public to Hancock on record .
Checking sales returns at five minute intervals , after weeks and weeks of patiently waiting , it was found that someone had actually bought a copy.
Working on the principle that fortune favours the brave, it had been decided to inflict another disc featuring the great man's meanderings.
This recording was made before an invited audience on October 1,1961 , and it was hoped it would raise the total sales of Hancock's albums to two !
It consists of two episodes from Hancock's last BBC series , retitled Hancock , which did not include Sidney James . One is the Blood Donor , in which he goes to a clinic to give blood, a line being , "A pint? Why, that's very nearly an armful!"
In the other , entitled The Radio Ham, in which he played an amateur radio operator who receives a mayday call from a yachtsman in distress but because of his incompetence cannot pinpoint his position . If this old blogger's memory is correct , the desperate yachtsman was reprimanded for screaming and Hancock liked asking other people he contacted what the weather was like over there , telling an Oriental gentleman the weather in London , hard to believe , was OK also .
