THE BOXING CHAMPION

Hancock's Half Hour (Radio) First Series - Programme 4

Under doctor's orders to lose weight, Hancock goes to Sid's Gym and gets involved in a boxing bout. He defeats Sid's champion by accident and finds himself in a full-scale championship match.

Cast
Tony Hancock
Bill Kerr
Moira Lister
Sidney James
Alan Simpson
Kenneth Williams
Paul Carpenter

Programme Guide

Some shows made play out of Hancock's portly appearance and this is one of them.

Initially, Hancock is told that he is overweight. The doctor advises him that he must lose weight or suffer the consequences. Reluctantly, Hancock decides to go to a gymnasium to try and work off some of the excess pounds. He finds that the establishment is run by Sid James and that he's more likely to lose pounds from his pocket instead. Nevertheless, Hancock is determined to make the effort to get fit at all costs. However, while he is doing so, he gets involved with a nearby sparring contest and purely by accident, he knocks down Sid's main championship contender.
Sid, the pound sterling signs literally lighting up in his eyes, is never one to miss an opportunity and convinces Hancock that he is good enough to be groomed for stardom. Hancock, blinded by vanity and as gullible as ever, agrees and Sid takes him under his professional wing. Then Sid enters Hancock in a top-flight championship boxing bout.

Sid James tackles a role similar to that which he had played in the 1953 feature film, "The Square Ring". In that rather undistinguished film, he portrayed Adams, the manager of a back-street sports stadium, complete with cigar permanently in his mouth, which he couldn't afford to light. Sid James was justifying completely his fourth spot on the bill and emerging as a strong contender for the second place that he would eventually attain.

The character Sid played was always much stronger-willed, dominant and persuasive than those of Hancock and Bill. Sid nearly always held an ace up his sleeve in their exchanges. It was not until much later, when Galton and Simpson wrote Sid in more and more as Hancock's friend, that Sid's character was allowed to show its own weaknesses to any extent, apart from criminal tendencies, that is. On rare occasions, Hancock was even able to get the upper hand over Sid, for example at the end of "The Unexploded Bomb" (Series 5, programme no. 6).

As their writing developed and the characters took on more depth and fully-rounded personalities, it must have been apparent to Galton and Simpson that Sid, with his almost directly opposed ideological characteristics, would offer Hancock the most scope as a foil. However, for the moment, Sid was the pivot point from where Hancock would make his mistakes and go on some ill-fated venture. At this same point, Moira and Bill would begin to dissuade Hancock, but it was nearly always too late.

Tony Hancock was perhaps noting with some pleasure that the series was winning a larger audience. Although the figures were nowhere near the twenty million mark, popularity was building with each succeeding episode.