The Importance of Being Hancock

"Oh God, how boring...how completely predictable, a review of Paul Merton's rendition of 'Twelve Angry Men' judged solely using Tony Hancock's original version as a yardstick". It is difficult to make out the motivation behind the ITV broadcast on January 26th which was the first in a series of reworked Galton& Simpson comedies, some based on the character and scripts of Hancock's Half Hour. The central characters are familiar enough but, whatever the thinking behind the series, what was Merton's portrayal like? The broadcasting of the new Merton series coincided with my transcription of Hancock's 1960 in-depth "Face to Face" interview with John Freeman. Studying the interview so closely made me look again at what part Tony played in the success of the "Hancock" phenomenon.

The Merton series has been in the pipeline for a long time and, from the first time I heard it mooted that the series may go ahead, I was very optimistic. I had long thought that Paul Merton, with his deadpan delivery, ample jowls and permanent fed-up expression, would make an excellent "Hancock". But that would be a mistake, as Merton, Galton and Simpson et al were only too keen to point out when the series was first discussed; what we would see was "Hancock" the character and not "Hancock" the comedy actor, a very valid distinction. This was to be Paul Merton portraying the character from Hancock's Half Hour in his own way, his own interpretation and so the familiar expressions and the furrowed brow which Hancock made synonymous with the character would not necessarily be taken on. If the object of the exercise was to present a different portrayal of Galton & Simpson's familiar character formerly of East Cheam (and I'm sure it was) then why do a remake thereby inviting inevitable comparisons with the genius himself? Wouldn't some new Galton & Simpson material have been a more interesting and rewarding exercise, taking the character which Tony portrayed in the 60's and planting him in the 1990's with new material?. I tried to watch the show with an open mind, ready to enjoy the show with the spectre of Tony Hancock put to the back of my mind. However I failed, probably because this was a remake of an episode which I love and with which I am so familiar, this was simply too great a shadow to step from.

So, back to the question: why remake Hancock's Half Hours at all? The brilliance of Galton & Simpson's original scripts means there's no need to "bring Hancock up to date". Hancock is still as fresh and satirical today as he was 35 years ago (give 'The Poetry Society' a listen if you have any doubts) and Galton & Simpson's sledgehammer efforts to modernise Hancock scripts for the 90's have been little more than token gestures - to loosen the ring which had become stuck on his finger in 'Twelve Angry Men', Hancock's knob of butter became Merton's "I Can't Believe it's Not Butter" and there was a mention of the O.J Simpson trial in a seemingly ham-fisted attempt to include90's-specific references. Today's special effects are a quantum leap away from what they were when "The Wizard of Oz" was filmed in 1939 but nobody would want to remake the film on these grounds, all the original magic of the film would be lost. So what other reason could there be to consider remakes of HHH? So that we could see another comedy actor's interpretation of the role perhaps? Now, the character of Hancock had depth, it certainly reflected the social influences of its time and, no doubt, "intellectual Bohemian" English teachers will probably, in time, include Galton & Simpson's work in the A-level syllabus. However, this is still only Paul Merton playing Galton & Simpson's Hancock we're talking about here, not Olivier's interpretation of Lear. In short, is the character of Hancock sufficiently complex to justify variation and interpretation? I think not.

In true tradition Paul (Hancock) and Sam (Sid) shared their real names with their characters. So how did they do? As I've already said, I tried to be as objective as possible and put Hancock from my memory whilst watching Paul Merton and I tried to imagine that I was watching the episode for the first time with a clear and open mind. This raised a hugely important and potentially controversial issue (especially for a devout Hancock fan): how much of the success of Hancock's Half Hour was due to Hancock and how much due to the scriptwriters? One can easily forget that great comedy such as Hancock's Half Hour is a unique combination of brilliant comic acting and scriptwriting talent. Like Hancock and Galton & Simpson, the magic of Morecambe &Wise would not have been what it is without Eddie Braben writing brilliant material for them and I have always tried to bear in mind that Hancock's personal genius was only part of the equation which made Hancock's Half Hour so fantastic.

I have always held a secret suspicion that Hancock wasn't as good as many people thought he was and I'm convinced Hancock was very much aware of this fact himself. Hancock desperately wanted to be seen as an intellectual (Sid recalls that Hancock was fascinated by thick books, a rather simple-minded and childish notion that the size of the book reflected the intelligence of the reader) and, though he tried to maintain a veneer of intelligence and complexity, one gets the impression that he was rather shallow and dim (as the Face to Face interview shows so starkly). This may well have been partly the reason for his tremendous nerves and anxiety, the general public thought he was brilliant and, at the top of his form (when he had what he called "an edge") he was, but he also seemed acutely conscious of his limitations and tried hard to give the impression that there was more to him than the character in the homburg and astrakhan collar. The truth probably was that there was actually no more depth to him and he must have consequently lived in constant fear of being "exposed" for what he really was. David Nathan and Freddie Hancock's biography tells us, for example, that Hancock was fascinated with Sid James' Jewish extraction, which no doubt gave Sid an exotic depth to his character which Hancock never had. The great tragedy here is that everybody would have happily accepted Hancock as himself - unremarkable but for his limited but brilliant comic talent. Galton & Simpson and the British public would have been happy for him to stay as the 'Hancock' they knew with the odd film thrown in - at that he had no equal. But, secretly knowing his own simplicity and limitations, Hancock tried to prove that there was more to him when there actually wasn't.

This is in stark contrast to Sid James who never tried to be anything but himself. Galton & Simpson, who seemed to include many truisms in Hancock scripts gave Hancock the line, "It's no good Sid, with a face like yours you can't pretend to be anybody but yourself". A contemporary and great comedy hero of Hancock's (and mine) was Jaques Tati. Tati was the sort of intellectual comedian which Hancock would have liked to have been but wasn't. Hancock performed his scripts better than anyone but doing 'Hancock's Half Hours' would never put him in the same genre as Tati. Whilst Hancock joked about pie and mash and "punches up the bracket" Tati talked of Hulotism ("you all have at least 5 minutes of Hulotism a month," said Tati,"...when you take the wrong seat of a train for example"). Hancock could not accept that it was sufficient to be peerless in what he did and that he couldn't compete with the creativity and high-brow appeal of Tati. Nevertheless he did try, speaking sometimes of 'Ancockism' in a vain attempt to convince people that, like Tati's, his comedy had a more philosophical element to it. Compare some of Hancock's opening answers in the Face To Face interview with Tati's following comments about "Mon Oncle",

"I confess, I would like to be able to make a film without a Hulot character...with only people I see, whom I observe, whom I brush up against in the streets and show them that anyone can find himself in a comic situation"

So I settled down to watch Paul Merton, ready to see what effect the lack of Tony Hancock would have on the scriptwriting of Galton & Simpson: to what extent would Tony be missed, if at all; was the script good enough to stand alone without Hancock. Merton's renditions of 'Twelve Angry Men" and 'The Blood Donor' showed superbly how much the success of Hancock's Half Hour was due to the "Lad Himself". Comparing the two versions of a Galton & Simpson script shows just what a genius Hancock was. In discussions about comedians like Hancock words like genius are often used and reference made to comic elements like "delivery" and "timing" without a clear understanding of the concepts. The term "genius" has become trite these days, its full significance diluted though over use. To me, a genius is naturally gifted, an innovator who has instinctive and extraordinary talent. Hancock certainly displayed many of these qualities in abundance and Paul Merton's efforts serve to illustrate this sharply. Merton certainly brought nothing new to the scripts, it was merely a word-for-word re-enactment but without the same commitment, lacking the massive energy of Tony Hancock. His lines were laboured, his timing telegraphed and his delivery indifferent. I wasn't sure I knew what "timing" and "delivery" were until I saw Merton's show and then realised just what they were: Tony Hancock had them, Paul Merton doesn't. Hancock, at his manic best, threw himself into the role. He was, to a greater or lesser extent, personally part of the character and the character was part of him. Hancock was not really innovative or creative with his comedy (unlike Tati or, for that matter, Galton & Simpson who effectively invented the "situation comedy") but as the character of Hancock, he was utterly instinctive and in that sense was a genius. It is a great shame that Hancock could not be satisfied in himself with just doing what he did best, being Hancock.