Sid James on Tony Hancock
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ต.ค. 2021
- Comedy legend Sid James talking about his former colleague and best friend Tony Hancock. Tony broke his successful partnership with Sid at the end of 1960 and, while Sid's career continued to go from strength to strength in the 'Carry On' film series and the TV sitcoms 'George and the Dragon' and 'Bless This House', Tony's career failed to maintain the heights of his 1961 BBC series 'Hancock' and he fell into terminal decline during the 1960's. Tony sadly took his own life in Australia in 1968. This interview with Sid was conducted three years later in 1971 and it's heartening to hear Sid talk with such fondness about his former friend.
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Hancocks Half Hour has been ringing in my ears since I was 4 yrs old! - I'm 70 now and still listen and laugh every time.
This is the first time I've heard Syd talk while not being in character. So different.
You can just hear a tiny hint of his original South African accent...
This is a lovely interview - I worked with a couple of people (now deceased) who worked with Sid -They loved him - he comes across as a really nice man
The affection that Sid had for Hancock is clear for all to hear
Remarkable interview. Some fascinating insights. Tony would have been 100 this year. RIP
Tony And Sid -together and apart - are two of my favorite performers
Hancock's half hour along with the Navy Lark were the Greatest Radio Comedies ever aired. Wonderful, intelligent and never to be forgotten personalities.
Lovely interview with a reflective and sensitive Sidney James.
R.I.P Tony and Sid.❤
I still listen to both. Two great comedy shows, sadly almost unknown to the younger generations.
I’m 44. I listened to them both with my dad, I now listen to them with my young daughters. With each generation, some of the humour is lost in translation. They are still my favourites, Dads Army and Round the Horne close behind.
Listen to tony whilst delivering thy mail on my mail round, only discovered him on Spotify because of my love of steptoe and Galton and Simpson, simply a joy, back on thy postie bike in thy morrow, cheers all Hancock fans 🍺🍺🍺from new🥝🥝🥝zealand 😁😁😁
started listening to Hancock when i was 11, i used to borrow my dads cassettes...still listening today..48yrsold
Ditto
Sid James is legendary, especially his laugh.
I recall rather liking The Punch and Judy Man when I saw it on tv about 50 years ago. Must be about time to watch it again.....
We have been members of the Tony Hancock Society for many years. Over that period of time we have had many splendid guests . June Whitfield, Liz Frazer and Anthony Bygraves. Our first reunion had Paul Merton and Galton and Simpson. Sid’s recollections are superb. Thank you.
Whether he was good or bad privately I think sid.James was an incredibly interesting and talented actor. I love he speaks so well.of Hancock.
His Name was Solomon Cohen and he first saw London and England at age 34.
But this man, epitomises England and the English more than they do in 2022.
What empathy and humanity to speak about the man who dropped him years before in such terms.
They were great friends.
@@piplee1439 He was hardly going to speak badly about Hancock.
@@JamesHenderson-wk4hd no, he boost Sids career no end.
@@piplee1439 It would have made Cohen look bad.
A beautiful reminder that the real Sid, contrary to what so many people still seem to assume, was nothing like 'Sid'. He was very clever, thoughtful and sensitive.
He punched pregnant women.
@@JamesHenderson-wk4hd He did no such thing. What a lowlife you are.
Yes, people who knew and worked with Sid always had good things to say about him.
Hancock broke new ground for comedy and was easily one of just a handful of all time great comedians. And Magna Carta did not die in vain!
“Brave Hungarian peasant girl who forced King John to sign the pledge at Runnymede and close the boozers at half past ten"
Galton and Simpson broke new ground for comedy. Tony Hancock performed it brilliantly. But when he tried to create comedy himself, things went very wrong for him. He was a comic actor, not a comedian.
Nobody could have thought that Magna Carta was a woman.
Sid was a terrific actor, technically very proficient. 100% reliable and a great foil. Not flexible, but solid. A South African who came to the UK and became a professional Cockney, but was never dependent on Hancock. Even during the Half Hour years he was making ten films a year, and I think was heartbroken Hancock broke off the partnership, but they were never a double act. The naturalism of the radio and TV was revolutionary in terms of sitcom. I listen to HHH every night to get to sleep. xxx
Cohen was an Israeli.
One take sid 👍
It is often forgotten how fine a dramatic actor Sid was - there are more than 40 films when this ability comes to the fore
What beautiful sentiments, voiced by a true, caring friend. Sid James could have held onto a lot of negative feelings regarding Tony Hancock but he didn't, he knew his friend was in crisis. What a fantastic testament this recording is to their friendship and to Sid James' character.
Cohen punched pregnant women.
How sad. Nice to hear Sid’s thoughts and memories, though.
It is a great tribute to Sid James, that, 48 years after his death (26/4/76) you only have to say "Sid" and everybody will know who you are talking about.
Tony Hancock was years ahead of his time....such a shame the way his life ended.
My mother used to deliver bread in late 60s 70s and part of her delivery area was Bellevue Hill in Sydney she actually met Tony Hancock he asked her for half a loaf my mother gave it to him for free she never knew who he was until he died she remembered he looked lost and seemed to be worried. But he was polite
benny hill used to deliver milk to my dad's house in southampton.
God love them both,,,,
WE ALL STILL FIND FUNNY LINES WE HAVE MISSED, EVEN AFTER ALL THESE YEARS😂
Whole cast long gone jow but truly BRILLIANT still make me and my children laugh
thank God he passed this way and gave a lot . Still have to watch the Rebel -much underrated- a few times a year. Great man, sad end.rip
Amazing interview, thanks for sharing.
Really lovely to hear. Part of my childhood. He appealed to all ages but let’s not forget Galton and Simpson who provided him with those wonderful lines. Even as a boy the words resonated with me because Hancock voiced the concerns and opinions we all had. I recall the Sunday afternoon sketch with Hancock laying on the settee and just sighing with boredom - just how Sundays were in those days. Hancock’s big mistake was getting rid of Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams (he resented the laughs he got) and, first and foremost, Galton and Simpson.
He was absolutely rubbish on his own.. there's no doubt he had , as Sid says a knack for performance but when it came to writing , he was abysmal. Galton and Simpson were the genius that pulled out the real elements of his character to be exaggerated within the formula for Hancock of East cheam. Had he, from the very start lived in a location with no setting , maybe that could have helped his international debut but saying about deleting all the slang of punch up the bracket and such like, I'm not sure. Maybe someone should edit a Hancock episode without the slang and see if it still impacts.
one of my favourites is a Christmas episode with full cast (not just sid and Tony) And a couple of children lol
As a recall I line delivered from the boring Sunday afternoon by Hatty Jacques summed it up - out of the blue was "Oh look! Its raining!".
@@martinusher1 Tony to Miss Pugh: 'I thought my mother was a bad cook, but at least her gravy used to move about.'
Laying is incorrect, he was lying on the settee.
Tony and Sid where a couple of great flawed geniuses
Such a sad end.
So glad that Sid was accepting of the split and not bitter. I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that TH was a a depressive or perhaps bipolar. The same guy, these days would be much better off with current treatments.
Certainly a severe depressive, exacerbated with heavy alcohol use.
This interview shows what a decent man Sid James really was. Hancock was a great comic but his ego was his undoing and finally led to his destruction. Hancock became increasingly envious of Sid James as his popularity began to equal his on his TV show. He got Sid sacked from the show without warning which caused a great deal of bitterness at the time. Sid, an old fashioned gent clearly bore Hancock no lasting bitterness. Strangely Sid James own demise was not all that different from Hancock's. He suffered a heart attack in the late 1960's and he was warned to cut down on the smoking and drinking, which he did. But in the mid 1970's something went badly wrong for Sid and he began to drink a bottle of whiskey a day and chain smoked.. His daughter later said that he was on such a downward spiral that nothing could save him, he seemed to have lost the will to live. And so as we all know he died on stage in 1975 or 76. As Monkhouse said about the comedians of the past 'all that remains is the echo of forgotten laughter'.
He died in April 1976.
The story goes, somebody telephoned his agent and says, "Sid's died on stage in Sunderland".
The agent replies, "Don't worry. Everybody dies on stage in Sunderland".
May or may not be true. But this one definitely is. Les Dawson was doing a show at the Sunderland Empire and swore he saw Sid's ghost. Not sure why, but it frightened him so much, he never played the Empire again after.
@@andyallom4357 The agent was Jack Douglas's brother, Bill Roberton.
Brilliant.
Adore them both!!
Radio Gold Hancock's Half Hour
Just like those little,spoilt brats in the Harry Potter films(never watched them).
All got rich off the talents of J.K.Rowling and all now hate her because she states that there are only men and women?
I noticed Sid has a hard time controlling the giggles in a few episodes of Hancock, like when he’s doing the charades in the library in “The Missing Page”.
Reminds me of when other actors couldn’t help laughing at Peter Sellers.
I remember as kids we would point to our toe, our knee, our hand and well, you know the rest.
Sid tells Babs Windsor that last story in 'Cor, Blimey!' , a 2000 ITV film that follows the relationship between Carry On film actors Sid James (played by Geoffrey Hutchings) and Barbara Windsor (played by Samantha Spiro).
Sid, and Diana Coupland. Their voices are my childhood. RIP. Hancocks great but I'm more interested in Sid. Watch the old re-runs of Bless this House. The takes go on forever and every line delivered (just about!) on queue. Great stuff. Great upload! Cheers.
He died in April 1976.
I don't think I've ever heard Sid being interviewed before. In the absence of any other info, I think we automatically equate a character with an actor. In other words, we imagine that the person is just like the roles he plays. Here he's clearly heard to be a far more eloquent and intelligent man than the comedy characters he portrayed! :-)
Some shallow comments without appreciating flawed genius. Hancock the Everyman. Such pathos.
do you have full MYL part 4 ?
I wonder how we would diagnose Hancock's illness today (aside from alcoholism)? I like to think he would have gotten much more appropriate help in this century.
I think he would have been a non binary transsexual with the pronouns they them and would of have a complete sex change.. at least then there would of been a funny female comedian
Not if he'd relied on the NHS. The currently available therapy in most circumstances is CBT which, from all the people I know who've engaged in it, adresses issues at a superficial level and doesn't dig into underlying causes anywhere remotely adequately.
2:08 Ah the days when men wore Bromberg hats and bothered about their appearance 😊🕵️♂️🇬🇧🙏🌈♥️
PHWOOOOOARR
It's a terrible thing to be lost and dissatisfied with oneself .. tony had this weakness.of taking things apart being dissatisfied with himself and unsure of what direction to continue with professionally . .
At his best his ego as matched y his skill as a comic actor ..at his worst he undermined himself with u realistic expectations and abuse of alcohol speeded up the destructive tendencies ..as it does in most ..some are saved ....Tony was manic depressive I think
Perhaps some of Tony's problems stemmed from the writing in the later Hancock's Half Hour series. There seemed to be an increasingly recurrent theme that Sid's character was cunning, devious and street smart. And Sid's character often ended the show getting the upper hand.
In fact part of the issue might have been that the characters actually had actors' own names. With long-running shows it can be disturbing for the actor when their character suffers in the fiction.
I understood from Tony Hancock 's Writers that he didn;y want to carry on working with Sid & Bill Kerr as a threesome, but just on his own (Australia trip) Will Hay was the same - he wantede to be successful on his wn without Moore Marriott & Graham Moffatt
Sid was an amazing man and the two together were the greatest of all time in my opinion! That interview that Tony had in Face to Face felt awkward, the interviewer had an awkward style if you ask me. I think Tony handled it really well though. Sid and Tony forever! The Rebel was a brilliantly funny film too!
"The Rebel" was garbage.
John Freeman did not have an awkward style, all who consented to appear on Face to Face knew that they were in for a probing.
@@paulweir5031it was the patrician style of the day - but with personal questions - unusual for the time that caught people then off guard
That photo at 7.50 looks to me to be from their final work together, making a record of two TV shows in 1965. Hancock's timing had gone completely, I wish those recordings could be wiped!
Apparently Hancock's delivery was so slow and sluggish the half-hour scripts lasted 40 minutes and they had to be severely edited. I'm not certain he was drunk while recording, but alcohol has affected him very badly. Sid was so angry at Hancock's lack of professionalism he swore never to work with him again.
..good evenin'.. 🙂
He should have returned to his writers after the failure of the ITV series,
I don't think Galton and Simpon would have worked with him again. He was too unreliable and an alcoholic by this point, and they were busy with Steptoe & Son. They wrote a musical called 'Noah' in 1966 and the producers wanted Hancock in the lead, but G&S were not convinced it would work. Nevertheless, they agreed to meet with him over lunch to discuss the project. Hancock turned up an hour late and drunk, G&S knew they would never write for him again after that.
Sid sounds a bit posh.
Sid and Tony - better than Laurel and Hardy and Laurel and Hardy were geniuses!
When you get to big for your boots and cut the people who made you sadly a bad decision
It's a shame Solomon Cohen punched pregnant women.
Oh please
@@Useaname He openly admitted it.
Never found Tony Hancock funny
Same here. That kind of quiet desperation seemed too close to the character. I have friends who split their sides at HHH but Hancock seemed to be playing himself much of the time.
Hancock wasn't even funny. Solomon Cohen punched pregnant women.
Oh please
@@Useaname Cohen openly admitted it.
Hancock wasn't at all funny.
People watched any unfunny rubbish when there were only two television channels.
haha.. go and watch your so called 'Funny men " today UNFUNNY I mean
Spot on.
Paul Merton tried to use the scripts a few years ago and the results were appalling.
Same Galton and Simpson words but he couldn't deliver, unlike Hancock.
@@paulweir5031 Merton is not an actor. Eric Sykes would have played the role much better than Hancock did.
Agreed👍
Hancock was crap! Period
Your in the minority there old chap…
Opinions are like arse holes.. everyones got one
Such a well thought out and reasoned comment
Can u read and write
@@stevenfinch9026 ye a can fanx... I'm right anyway....he ain't as good as you all think and that my friend's (ha) is da truth! He's rubbish compared to Ronnie Barker or Dave Allen . I watched,I thought, I gave my opinion. Short and sweet as it was, that was my final assessment and that is what I am schtinkezy wiv .
Glad to be of use to you all though 😘
You can just discern a bit of the South African accent from Sid here, something you never heard in his acting!
Tony Hancock really sounded like the most insufferable bore. The fact he couldn't stand that James, Williams, Galton & Simpson et al got any credit at all says everything about the man.