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Studiocanal launched a brand new official podcast – and the host might just be familiar to Film Stories listeners.

This is a bit of an odd story for me to write. Basically, well, because I’m in it. I’ll see how I get on.

The rather fine folks at Studiocanal have launched an official podcast, digging into the huge archive of movies under its stewardship. It’s arriving regularly, and as well as focusing on a movie of the month, there’s a broader exploration of other bits and bobs too.

Don’t take our word for it. Here’s Jamie McHale, the head of theatrical marketing at the studio: “We’re thrilled to be launching an official podcast to celebrate our incredible library of titles and upcoming theatrical releases. The in-depth analysis and regular features such as “Dream Double Bills” and “Hidden Gems” from Simon and his guests are...

The next entry in our series of writers highlighting their go-to comfort watches is a look back to the 1961 Tony Hancock comedy

For me, memorable and/or uplifting film experiences tend to be around individual moments – the resurrection scene in The Matrix for example, or Dizzy’s “I got to have you” in Starship Troopers. (Do either really hold a candle to Mel Brooks’s A Little Piece of Poland number in the To Be Or Not to Be remake? The jury is still out.) But without wanting to sound like either a retro bore or a they-don’t-make-’em-like-they-used-to fuddy-duddy, I turn to Tony Hancock’s yuk-heavy feature vehicle from 1961 for its unfailing ability to cheer me up.

I think I must have first watched it in the 1980s on TV, after my dad solemnly recited one of the film’s great moments, when Hancock offers a hunk of...

Studiocanal is delighted to mark the centenary in 2024 of the birth of British comedy royalty, Tony Hancock, by announcing the release of The Punch And Judy Man on DVD and Blu-Ray on 3rd March 2025. To celebrate we are giving away 2 Blu-Ray copies of the film!

Appearing in his second feature film-starring role, Tony Hancock gives a memorable performance in this bittersweet comedy of small-town snobbery and one-upmanship.

Content to scratch out a living in the faded seaside town of Piltdown, puppeteer Wally Pinner (Hancock) is unhappily married to Delia (Sylvia Syms), a gift-shop owner with social pretensions. When Wally is invited to perform at the town’s anniversary gala reception, however, Delia senses a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to raise the couple’s social standing…

Directed by Jeremy Summers and written by Phillip Oakes & Tony Hancock.

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Studiocanal is delighted to mark the centenary in 2024 of the birth of British comedy royalty, Tony Hancock, by announcing the release of The Rebel on DVD and Blu-Ray on 3rd March 2025. To celebrate we are giving away 2 Blu-Ray copies of the film!

Comedy legend Tony Hancock makes his feature film-starring debut in this witty satire that takes both white-collar monotony and the pretensions of the art-world in its crosshairs. Directed by Robert Day and written by Tony Hancock, Ray Galton & Alan Simpson.

A self-taught artist with an enthusiasm that far exceeds any ability, Anthony Hancock throws in his hollow office job and moves to Paris to live his dream. Although he quickly finds acceptance among the bohemians and beatniks, legitimate critics scoff at his work. However, he begins to taste critical success when the art of his talented former roommate becomes confused with his own.

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Tony Hancock’s feature film outings The Rebel and The Punch And Judy Man are getting fresh DVD and Blu-ray releases. More here.

It’s one of the most well known lines in comedy. Tony Hancock goes to give blood and, on being told he’ll be giving a pint, says the immortal words, “I don’t mind giving a reasonable amount, but a pint? That’s very nearly an armful!”.

The writers or those words and many more were Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who went on to create the hugely successful sitcom Steptoe And Son too.

Hancock made only two forays into film, and they are both being rereleased on DVD and Blu-ray in March.

The first film was The Rebel. Directed by Robert Day, scripted by Galton and Simpson and released in 1961, the synopsis reads as follows:

A self-taught artist with an enthusiasm that far exceeds any ability,...

On Thursday, September 27, 2024, at 12:20 Am, Hancock’s Half Hour returns to That’s TV3 with an amusing episode titled “The Lift.” This beloved British sitcom, starring the legendary Tony Hancock, offers a blend of humor and relatable situations that is sure to entertain viewers.

In this episode, Hancock finds himself in a rather sticky situation when he inadvertently becomes the ninth passenger in a lift that is only meant to accommodate eight. As luck would have it, the lift gets stuck between floors, leaving Hancock and the other passengers in a tense predicament. In typical Hancock fashion, he attempts to lighten the mood by cracking jokes and trying to cheer everyone up. However, his well-intentioned efforts are met with dismay, as the other passengers are less than thrilled with his antics.

The episode showcases Hancock’s unique ability to turn everyday scenarios into comedic gold. With its clever writing and Hancock’s charm,...

Muhammad Ali called Oct. 26, 1970, his “day of judgment.” His refusal to be inducted to the Army during the Vietnam War, on moral and religious grounds, had pushed him out of the ring for 43 months. But that night in Atlanta, his boxing license restored, he faced “The Great White Hope” Jerry Quarry in his long-awaited return to the ring. Black royalty from Harlem to Birmingham showed up and showed out: Diana Ross, Sidney Poitier, Hank Aaron, and Corretta Scott King filled ringside seats. Filling the stands right alongside them were a bevy of gangsters,...

The writer, broadcaster and satirist Victor Lewis-Smith has died, aged 65.

The former Independent columnist and documentary-maker died in Bruges, Belgium, on Saturday (10 December) after a short illness.

Born in Essex, Lewis-Smith began his career at BBC Radio Medway. After working at Radio York, he moved to Radio 4 where he was a staff producer for Midweek and Start the Week during the mid-1980s.

Lewis-Smith went on to work as a film, TV and radio producer, predominantly through his production company Associated Rediffusion Productions Limited.

He worked on Spitting Image and the short-lived Channel 4 comedy show TV Offal.

He was also a restaurant critic and columnist. He wrote a regular column for Private Eye, and was the chief TV critic at the Evening Standard for 15 years.

In 1993, Lewis-Smith co-wrote and presented the BBC sketch show Inside Victor Lewis-Smith, which starred Roger Lloyd Pack, Annette Badland, Moya Brady, Tim Barlow, Nickolas Grace and George Raistrick.

British publicist and marketing consultant Freddie Ross Hancock, whose clients included Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews and Benny Hill, and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died in the city at the age of 92.

Born Freda Ross in 1930 in North London, she learned the public relations business working for the Holland America cruise line for two years, after which she joined the Universal Film Corporation of America as assistant head of publicity in the U.K.

In the early 1950s she set up her own publicity firm, Freda Ross Associates, representing performers such as Benny Hill, Dick Emery, Bob Monkhouse, Terry Scott and Hugh Lloyd. She met comedian and actor Tony Hancock in 1954 when she was 24, and persuaded him to take her on as his publicist.

In 1959 Ross and Hancock began an affair, although he was married, but they lived together openly from...

Click here to read the full article.

Freddie Ross Hancock, the British marketing consultant and publicist who represented Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, Benny Hill, Theodore Bikel and Jim Dale and helped bring the British Academy of Film and Television Arts to New York, has died. She was 92.

Ross Hancock died Sunday at her home in Manhattan, friend and former Warner Bros. executive Luke Fontneau announced.

Another of her clients was popular English comedian and actor Tony Hancock. They began a romantic relationship in 1957 while he was married and wed in December 1965, but soon after she filed for divorce, he died by suicide in 1968 at age 44.

After Hancock’s death, she moved to the U.S., where she worked as an acquisitions executive for American Video Films, served as vice chairman of the U.S. wing of the Royal Television Society and consulted for companies including Miramax.

She was honored as...

A long-lost episode of Tony Hancock’s 1950s radio show, Hancock’s Half Hour, has been found and restored and will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 next month.

The penultimate episode from the show’s first radio series features the actor and comedian Peter Sellers – who was standing in for Hancock’s regular collaborator Kenneth Williams.

The episode, named “The Marriage Bureau” aired just once, on 8 February 1955, attracting an audience of 6.22 million listeners, according to the British Comedy Guide.

The news was announced by the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society on Twitter, who wrote: “We’re absolutely thrilled that a lost episode of Hancock’s Half Hour has been found, restored, and will be broadcast on Radio 4 on 18 October.

“‘The Marriage Bureau’ was never repeated and has not been heard since 1955. Only episode to feature Peter Sellers,” they continued.

“Sellers plays the parts given in the scripts to Kenneth Williams...

Tony Hancock’s two leading film roles are a reminder of the extremes of his comic genius. Paul Merton talks about the legacy of his hero – and how comedy is too coarse today

Seven years before his suicide, Tony Hancock tried to become a movie star. The Rebel (1961) is a comedy about a clerk who quits his job and moves to Paris to become an artist, despite his total lack of talent. Scripted by Half Hour creators Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, it was a deluxe bespoke vehicle, designed to take Hancock across the Atlantic and turn him into the new Peter Sellers.

Brits flocked. Homegrown critics raved. And Hollywood absolutely hated it.

Director Bryan Forbes tries his hand at comedy. His nostalgic Victorian farce features an eclectic choice of Brit stars — established greats John Mills & Ralph Richardson, the freshly-minted Michael Caine, reigning jester Peter Sellers and even a debut for the collegiate pranksters Peter Cook & Dudley Moore. It’s a beaut of a production with a charming John Barry music score… but the result yields more indulgent smiles than out-and-out laughs.

The Wrong Box

Region A+B Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator

1966 / Color / 1:75 widescreen / 105 min. / Street Date November 23, 2018 / available from Amazon UK / £14.99

Starring: John Mills, Ralph Richardson, Michael Caine, Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Nanette Newman, Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers, Wilfrid Lawson, Thorley Walters, Gerald Sim, Irene Handl, Norman Bird, John Le Mesurier, Norman Rossington, Diane Clare, Tutte Lemkow, Charles Bird, Vanda Godsell, Jeremy Lloyd, James Villiers, Graham Stark, Dick Gregory, Valentine Dyall, Leonard Rossiter, André Morell, Temperance Seven, Andrea Allan, Juliet Mills.

Cinematography:...

Stage and screen actor best known for her roles in the Carry On films and as Cynthia Kite in the 1959 classic I’m All Right Jack

The actor Liz Fraser, who has died aged 88, specialised in comedy in a career that stretched from cough and spit parts in 1950s Ealing Studios films to a guest star suspect in the latest series of Midsomer Murders (2018). She also worked with Tony Hancock and Sid James, and starred in the classic I’m All Right Jack (1959) with Peter Sellers, but her long and varied career was almost inevitably overshadowed by her membership of the Carry On team.

The slap and tickle British film institution of innuendo and pratfall, awash with music hall one-liners, Carry On celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and remains as popular as ever, a reassuring never-never land of off-colourjokes, whose occasional sexism, racism and homophobia is somehow muted by...

Yayoi Kusama David Zwirner Gallery, NYC Thru December 16th, 2017

Spots are a disease -- a "Pop Art" pox; a sign of madness, an hallucination. As Tony Hancock says in his brilliant comic movie The Rebel (1961) where he plays a modern artist: "I get the spots before my eyes, the red mist, and I'm off."

Yayoi Kusama is off again at David Zwirner Gallery on 533 West 19th Street in Chelsea. You will have to queue around the block to see her new installations. But you can just walk into a room on 19th street and see 66 of her new paintings. This is a review of the work in that room.

Paranoia is lonely, ironically the sense you have of being watched belies the fact that no one's taking any notice at all. The putting on of spots was an act, for Kusama, of "field" being used to cover neurosis. Kusama's paintings...

Clifford Hatts (Obituary, 25 September) designed many memorable productions for BBC Television, including Quatermass and the Pit. I wonder if he was also involved in what for me was more memorable – Hancock and the Pit, a spoof of the sci-fi serial.

I particularly recall an exchange in which Tony Hancock asks Sid James what he would do if an alien appeared. James says he would give it “a punch up the bracket”. “Has it occurred to you,” retorts Hancock, “that a Martian might not have a bracket to be punched up?”

Continue reading...

The directors of Jurassic World and Terminator Genisys have criticised the movies’ marketing campaigns, saying they contain spoilers and misrepresent their work. Does their unusual honesty point to a wider crisis in Hollywood?

Ever since Marlon Brando slurred: “Whaddya got?” to a friendly bobbysoxer’s enquiries, it has been clear that cinema loves a rebel. Everyone and everything, from Star Wars to Tony Hancock, likes to give the word an airing, and fight their corner. Often, however, it seems as if film-makers themselves are the least rebellious creatures of all. Shackled by funding obligations, corralled by marketing teams, subdued by press campaigns, directors tend to be docile beasts, the least truculent, most accommodating figures in the creative arts spectrum. With so much cash – and the fate of entire corporations – riding on their efforts, it’s not hard to understand why.

But something may be stirring: the first small sparks of revolution.

We chat to Doctor Who and Sherlock writer and actor Mark Gatiss about his series 8 episode Robot Of Sherwood, 'darkness', and more.

Warning: contains a spoiler for An Adventure In Space And Time.

Mark Gatiss is a busy man but polite to a fault. He agreed to squeeze in a chat with us after a lengthy round of Us phone interviews on the eve of broadcast for his seventh Doctor Who episode, Robot Of Sherwood ("It'll just be nice to talk to someone who doesn't say Rah-ban Hud!"). Half an hour before the scheduled time, he calls to say that he's finished with the Americans but would I mind waiting twenty minutes while he has his tea? Take as long as you like, I say, thinking a) how rare it is for 'the talent' not to communicate their running-late apologies through a PR, b) for 'the talent' to apologise for running late at all,...

Update: DreamWorks Animation has clarified statemens by Korea’s Studio Mir which were erroneously reported in the local press late last week. The company is in the process of working with Studio Mir to finalize a possible production agreement for one series, and has not inked a deal with Studio Mir for the latter to produce as many as four cartoon TV series during the next four years. Dwa says it would be engaging the studio on a work for hire basis, meaning it would not be a co-producer and would not gain any interest in Dwa’s intellectual property. The Korean animation studio is known for 2D fantasy series The Legend Of Korra, which airs Stateside on Nickelodeon.

Bill Kerr, the Australian actor known as “the boy from Wagga Wagga,” died Thursday in Perth. He was 92. Kerr was a radio and vaudeville star before moving to the UK in...

‘Doctor Who’ actor Bill Kerr, also featured in Peter Weir’s ‘Gallipoli’ and ‘The Year of Living Dangerously,’ dead at 92 (photo: Bill Kerr and Patrick Troughton in ‘Doctor Who’) Australian actor Bill Kerr, best known internationally for a guest spot in the 1960s TV series Doctor Who, and for his supporting roles in the Peter Weir movies Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, died on August 28 (or 29, according to some sources), 2014, while watching the TV show Seinfeld at his home in Perth, West Australia. Kerr, whose exact cause of death is unclear, was 92. Born William Kerr on June 10, 1922, in Capetown, South Africa, to Australian vaudevillian parents touring the country, Bill Kerr grew up in Australia, where he became a popular television, stage, and film personality. His show business career began at an early age. “My mother took about 10 weeks off to have me, and when she returned to the...

Feature Alex Westthorp 16 Apr 2014 - 07:00

Alex's trek through the film roles of actors who've played the Doctor reaches Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy...

Read the previous part in this series, Doctor Who: the film careers of Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker, here.

In March 1981, as he made his Doctor Who debut, Peter Davison was already one the best known faces on British television. Not only was he the star of both a BBC and an ITV sitcom - Sink Or Swim and Holding The Fort - but as the young and slightly reckless Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great And Small, about the often humorous cases of Yorkshire vet James Herriot and his colleagues, he had cemented his stardom. The part led, indirectly, to his casting as the venerable Time Lord.

The recently installed Doctor Who producer, John Nathan-Turner, had been the Production Unit Manager on...

Feature Alex Westthorp 9 Apr 2014 - 07:00

In the next part of his series, Alex talks us through the film careers of the second and fourth Doctors, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker...

Read Alex's retrospective on the film careers of William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, here.

Like their fellow Time Lord actors, William Hartnell and Jon Pertwee, Patrick Troughton and Tom Baker also shared certain genres of film. Both appeared, before and after their time as the Doctor, in horror movies and both worked on Ray Harryhausen Sinbad films.

Patrick George Troughton was born in Mill Hill, London on March 25th 1920. He made his film debut aged 28 in the 1948 B-Movie The Escape. Troughton's was a very minor role. Among the better known cast was William Hartnell, though even Hartnell's role was small and the two didn't share any scenes together. From the late Forties, Troughton found more success on the small screen,...

Prolific comedy actor who worked with Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan and Hattie Jacques

The stony-faced, beaky comedy actor Graham Stark, who has died aged 91, is best remembered for his appearances alongside Peter Sellers, notably in the Pink Panther movies. His familiar face and voice, on television and radio, were part of the essential furniture in the sitting room of our popular culture for more than half a century. A stalwart in the national postwar comedy boom led by Sellers, Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Dick Emery, Eric Sykes and Benny Hill, he worked with them all in a sort of unofficial supporting repertory company that also included Hattie Jacques, Deryck Guyler, Patricia Hayes and Arthur Mullard. He was also a man of surprising and various parts: child actor, trained dancer, film-maker, occasional writer, and dedicated and critically acclaimed photographer.

Like Gypsy Rose Lee, he had a resourceful and determined...

They didn't quite look the part but Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter brought chemistry to BBC4's final biopic

Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer

Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD

Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD

Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.

They didn't quite look the part but Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter brought chemistry to BBC4's final biopic

Burton and Taylor (BBC4) | iPlayer

Why Don't You Speak English? (C4) | 4oD

Notes from the Inside with James Rhodes (C4) | 4oD

Dominic West was wonderful, yes, and Helena Bonham Carter too, yes, yes, but the main thing to be said about Burton and Taylor was: what a shame. Such a shame that this phenomenal strand of BBC4 biopics ended there and then, thanks to "budget cuts". They'd done Kenneth Williams, Tony Hancock, Enid Blyton and many others, lives unwrapped with forensic writerly skill, and some magnificent acting, and, yes, a hefty salting of dramatic licence – and yet, throughout, somehow each one netted and skewered the soul of the character in question. The 20th century, in Britain, had at least another three dozen ripe characters to offer up, and now it won't happen.

Comedian, actor, writer and director who came to prominence in satirical TV sketch show Not the Nine O'Clock News

Mel Smith was once upstaged by a talking gorilla. He was playing a zoologist in a sketch on his hit comedy show Not the Nine O'Clock News and the gorilla suit contained Rowan Atkinson. "When I caught Gerald in 68 he was completely wild," said Smith. "Wild?" retorted the gorilla. "I was absolutely livid!"

If the gorilla had the best line, Smith had the more expressive countenance, mugging with a deadpan virtuosity rarely seen since Oliver Hardy in his pomp. That face – as hangdog as his childhood hero Tony Hancock's – made Smith, who has died of a heart attack aged 60, one of the most recognisable of postwar British comedians.

Smith's face was only part of his fortune. He was a writer and editor of some of the most redoubtable British TV...

Count Arthur Strong's transition from radio to TV falls flat, but Jane Campion's first foray into television is intriguing

Count Arthur Strong (BBC2) | iPlayer

Top of the Lake (BBC2) | iPlayer

Piper Alpha: Fire in the Night (BBC2) | iPlayer

NewsTalk Live (C5)

I used to enjoy, very much, listening to Count Arthur Strong. But that was when it was on the radio, and I was in the bath. Six-thirty of a pm, the purple glower of dusk, risotto glooping away gently on the stove, and life doesn't get much better than that. I fully appreciate that expectations can vary hugely according to, for instance, personal childcare needs, personal mental health, local proliferation of guns, wholly imagined threat of incipient alien attack, etc. But the programme used to make me smile. Now, instead, it's on my television, and that is, I think, a mistake, and not just because of the...

Author: Alwyn W. Turner

Paperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Aurum Press Ltd; Reprint edition (April 1, 2013)

Isbn-10: 1781310416

Isbn-13: 978-1781310410

Synopsis:

The Daleks are one of the most iconic and fearsome creations in television history. Since their first appearance in 1963, they have simultaneously fascinated and terrified generations of children, their instant success ensuring, and sometimes eclipsing, that of Doctor Who. They sprang from the imagination of Terry Nation, a failed stand-up comic who became one of the most prolific writers for television that Britian ever produced. Survivors, his vision of a post-apocalyptic England, so haunted audiences in the Seventies that the BBC revived it over thirty years on, and Blake’s 7, constantly rumored for return, endures as a cult sci-fi classic. But it is for his genocidal pepperpots that Nation is most often remembered, and on the 50th anniversary of their creation they continue to top the Saturday-night ratings.

Yet while the...

Actor best known as the haughty department store supervisor Captain Peacock in the TV comedy Are You Being Served?

The actor Frank Thornton, who has died aged 92, had a flair for comedy derived from the subtle craftsmanship of classical stage work. However, he will be best remembered for his longstanding characters in two popular BBC television comedy series – the sniffily priggish Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served? and the pompous retired policeman Herbert "Truly" Truelove, in Roy Clarke's Last of the Summer Wine.

Robertson Hare, the great Whitehall farceur, told him: "You'll never do any good until you're 40." And, said Thornton, "he was quite right." In the event, he was 51 when David Croft, producer of another long-running British staple, Dad's Army, remembered the tall, long-faced actor from another engagement and decided to cast him as the dapper floor-walker in charge of shop assistants played by Mollie Sugden, Wendy Richard,...

To mark the discovery of Richard III's skeleton under a car park in Leicester, we've put together some clips of the monarch's most memorable screen portrayals

Reading on a mobile? Watch here

Laurence Olivier's 1955 Shakespeare adaptation remains the dominant source for our assumptions of all things Richard III. Dressed in black, scowly as hell, and with that creepy, reedy intonation, Olivier's interpretation defined Richard as evil Crookback, of whom we should be grateful to Henry Tudor that we are rid. Perversely, punk rocker John Lydon cited him as a major influence, and clips from the film pop up in Julien Temple's Filth and the Fury doco. (Look for him at 1:45 in this clip.)

Reading on a mobile? Watch here

Olivier was endlessly, instantly parody-able, as Peter Sellers showed on a 1964 Beatles TV show, doing Hard Day's Night in the style of Winter of Discontent.

Reading on a mobile?...

Nowhere to Go (1958) starts well, with an almost nine-minute prison break sequence that's highly unusual because it shows someone breaking into a prison. In this case it's Bernard Lee (M in James Bond) who's the one scaling the wall. Bold? Perhaps...but it certainly sets the tone for what is surely an eventful film...

George Nader plays suave conman Paul Gregory, who latches onto wealthy widow Harriet Johnson because she has a rare coin collection. Posing as a playwright stuck on 'the second act' he arranges the sale of her coins, insisting that he be paid on her behalf in cash for the £50,000. At this point, I could delve further into the plot but...well...I think you can guess the rest.

Jazz fans will enjoy the jazz score by British star Dizzy Reece. Non-jazz fans like me might find it grating at times. Do not watch this movie if you've got a headache.

Script for fourth episode of 1955 show catalogued along with those for and by the likes of Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers

When Tony Hancock failed to turn up for three episodes of his radio show in 1955, producers simply replaced him with Harry Secombe as if nothing had happened. The fourth episode followed Hancock and Sid James as they travelled to Swansea to thank him – where they found him singing down a coalmine.

The recorded episode was wiped and continues to be lost, but the script – along with a host of others – has now emerged. They have been catalogued by the actor turned rare books dealer, Neil Pearson.

It is a true treasure trove, featuring scripts by and for comedy stars such as Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers, Frankie Howerd and Kenneth Williams. "It is a rather extraordinary and rather moving collection of material that reminds us of how we used to...

Singer, dancer and theatrical agent who represented Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton

Bernard Hunter, who has died aged 92, was a precocious young performer, a popular singer and dancer, and, later, a theatre agent who represented many stars in Britain and the Us, including Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Olivia de Havilland. He continued to represent clients into his late 80s. Hunter's approachable good looks and air of a casual boulevardier seemed to attract consistent good luck.

Born in London, Hunter described his childhood in Islington as full of "maniacal happiness". Asked what his father did, he was apt to quip affectionately: "As little as possible." His father was in fact devoted to horses and the racetrack. Through gambling, he lost the money that was supposed to be for his son's education. However, at 16, Hunter won a singing competition at a local cinema. The prize was an appearance in a week's variety at the Winter Gardens,...

The entertainment world has lost one of its most respected comedy writers and performers as Eric Sykes has died at the age of 89.Sykes grew up in Oldham, Lancashire and began his entertainment career while serving in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following the conflict, he moved to London in 1946 and began looking for work. A lucky break – very lucky, since he’d ended up cold and penniless – saw him meet an old Air Force friend, Bill Fraser, who invited him to come and write material at the Playhouse Theatre. Sykes wound up writing for Fraser and other performers including Frankie Howerd, and quickly made a name for himself as a quality comic scribe.Sykes started performing himself on the radio in 1950, working with, among other notable names, Tony Hancock. During that time, he shared an office with Spike Milligan. In 1954, he began working with Milligan on Goon Show scripts,...

TV and radio comedy legend Eric Sykes has died at the age of 89. Stars have been quick to celebrate the writer and actor who worked with comic icons such as Tommy Cooper and Tony Hancock during his seven decade-long career, praising his comic talents, genius writing skills and humble and generous nature. But for those too young to remember the likes of Sykes and The Plank, here are some classic clips of Eric in action: Sykes, Hattie Jacques on the Billy Cotton Band Show

Eric and his most famous collaborator Hattie Jacques are in fine comic form in this early recording of the Band Show. Billy Cotton joins them for a comic reworking of 'I Caught Mummy Kissing Santa Claus'. Sykes and Jacques

Sykes and Hattie Jacques in one of their earliest TV outings, an early episode of Sykes And A.... Two superb comic actors at (more)...

London, July 4: British comic legend Eric Sykes died Wednesday after short illness. He was 89 years old.

Some of his best remembered films are "Harry Potter: The Goblet Of Fire", "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," and "The Plank", reports femalefirst.co.uk.

Skyes had written skits for big names like Tony Hancock, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. In 1950, he worked in a radio comedy show - "The Goon Show".

In.

TV and radio writer and acting legend Eric Sykes has died aged 89, leaving a huge hole in the comedy world. Sykes, who worked with greats such as Tommy Cooper, Hattie Jacques, Tony Hancock and Spike Milligan, entertained seven generations of audiences with his gentle but zany comedic style. Performers and fans of all ages have left tributes for Sykes with the media and on Twitter today (July 4). Keep reading for a small selection of the plaudits: Stephen Fry on Twitter: "Oh no! Eric Sykes gone? An adorable, brilliant, modest, hilarious, innovative and irreplaceable comic master. Farewell, dear, dear man." Jon Plowman, former Head of BBC Comedy: "We won't see his like again. He was a wonderful improviser. His genius was both as a scriptwriter but also someone who could do stuff off the cuff. He was classless and funny and warm." TV (more)...

Eric Sykes, the legendary TV and radio comedian, has passed away aged 89. The writer and star of classic '70s BBC sitcom Sykes, a writer for The Goon Show and a collaborator with stars such as Hattie Jacques, Tommy Cooper, Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock, Sykes entertained and amused audiences for seven decades. [Photo Gallery - The Life & Career of Eric Sykes] Sykes was partially deaf from his 30s and in later age was registered blind, but he continued to perform despite his disabilities. He married Edith Eleanore Milbrandt (more)...

The legendary British TV actor and comedian Eric Sykes has passed away following a short battle with illness, aged 89. Sykes's entertainment career as a writer for TV and radio, actor and director spanned seven decades and included work with comedy greats such as Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Hattie Jacques. The TV star's manager Norma Farnes said this morning (July 4): "Eric Sykes, star of TV, stage and films, died peacefully this morning after a short illness. His family were with him." Sykes is best remembered for his work in the 1960s and '70s, when he regularly teamed up with Hattie Jacques in the sitcoms and sketch (more)...

Sky Atlantic will air retro ads for products such as Kit Kat and Cadbury's during tonight's season five launch of Mad Men. The broadcaster will be airing the first episode of the hit 1960s ad agency drama since 2010 and its first since picking up the rights for the critically-acclaimed drama from AMC. As part of the premiere launch, Sky Atlantic will treat fans to special advertisements, which will move through time during the breaks. Adverts confirmed to air during the broadcast include the original Flake girl commercial, Prunella Scales's Tetley Tea promo, a Milk Tray man advert, Tony Hancock's 'Go (more)...

The Day Off revisited

Its not often that an unmade film can get revived and given a world premiere, least of all when its script was abandoned 50 years ago. But that is in a sense what has happened this year with The Day Off - a unfilmed script written by Steptoe And Son creator team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and premiered at this years London Comedy Film Festival via a live cast reading to an audience. Written with the intention of starring comedy legend Tony Hancock in 1961 (Galton and Simpson having worked with him before on the film The Rebel in 1961, and earlier in radio...

Art films don’t have to be serious, but a lot of them are. Madness, suffering, death—at times these become depressingly familiar themes at film festivals. For this reason, the rare comedy film is welcome: comedy highlights of last year’s festivals were Matchmaking Mayor at Berlin and Sons of Norway in Reykjavik. Although you’re primed to enjoy them, comedies are a reliable choice, as they typically have to be original, as well as funny, to be included in the festival.

What if you could have a festival that showed nothing but comedies? And what if it cheered you up during the most depressing month of the year? That’s just what the charity ‘Loco’ has done this year. London’s very first comedy film festival is taking place this weekend at the BFI. It started last night, and you’ll have to be quick if you want...

They made TV history together and were planning their next film – until Tony Hancock rejected their script. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson reveal why The Day Off is now back on

The best review we ever had wasn't from a critic. It was from an artist, Lucian Freud. He said that The Rebel was the greatest film ever made about modern art. The 1961 movie was the first, and sadly the only, film we made with Tony Hancock. It's the story of an office clerk, played by Hancock, who believes himself to be a great but undiscovered artist. When he's fired from his job he moves to Paris, in the hope that the art world will recognise him for the genius he is. Of course, being Hancock, he's a terrible painter, but his ability to act like a genius persuades a group of fashionable young artists that he might be the real deal.

London Comedy Film Festival

A quick burst of winter blues-banishing, with comedies old (1960s heist comedy Go To Blazes), new (a preview of the new Muppets movie) and both old and new (a "world premiere" read-through of The Day Off, a movie written for Tony Hancock by Galton and Simpson, which was never made). Guest of honour is Edgar Wright, who introduces a double bill: Shaun Of The Dead and Mike Leigh's Life Is Sweet, with guests and a Q&A; and there are discoveries to be made in anarchic French movie The Fairy and a secret new British comedy.

BFI Southbank, SE1, Thu to 29 Jan

Steven Severin: Vampyr, Nationwide

Following the success of his spooky live soundtrack to Jean Cocteau's avant-garde 1932 film The Blood Of A Poet last year, the former Siouxsie And The Banshees bassist embarks on a tour with another freshly rescored classic. This...

London, Jan 2: The script that led comic legend Tony Hancock to leave his hit writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, is going to be made into a film, more than 50 years after it was first written.

Galton and Simpson, who had penned all of Hancock's television and radio series from the early Fifties onwards, came up with movie script The Day Off in 1961.

But Hancock, who was keen to crack Hollywood at the time, insisted it 'wasn't international' enough.

He then split from Galton and Simpson - a move which is regarded as the biggest mistake of his career. While they went on to write the hit sitcom Steptoe And Son, Hancock succumbed.

It's all about the Venice film festival this week, and Xan Brooks is our man on the Lido, comparing notes with George Clooney and explaining one or two things to Madonna

The big story

Men want to be him, women want to be with him. That's how we like to think of dashing, debonair Xan Brooks who, like Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me, has swanned off down to Venice for a spot of international jet-set action. In other words, the Venice film festival has got underway, and his opening video missive sees Xan lounging in typically suave manner on the steps of the Palazzo del Cinema. Later on, the Xanster got to run the rule over George Clooney, the man who has learned everything he knows about charm from our Mr Brooks. Clooney's latest directorial effort, The Ides of March, launched the festival, and you can read...

The Day Off, by writing team Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, was unearthed during research for a new biography of the duo

They wrote some of the funniest, most memorable British comedy of the 20th century. Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's scripts for Tony Hancock had lines so brilliant, characters so absurd and jokes so sublime that they embedded themselves in the national consciousness.

Fans should prepare themselves for a treat, though, because the best may be yet to come. The Observer can reveal that Galton and Simpson completed a feature-length film script for Hancock that has never been made public. The Day Off, the gut-wrenching tale of a hapless bus conductor who just can't get anything right, has been hailed as a lost masterpiece and "the holy grail of comedy".

"It's probably the best thing they ever wrote," said Christopher Stevens, the author and journalist who stumbled on...

The story behind the making of the film and the religious storm it caused are the subject of Holy Flying Circus

As Brian Cohen, the hapless hero of Monty Python's Life of Brian, finds out, it can be tricky stepping into the shoes of someone worshipped by all. And the fear of not passing muster is on the minds of all six actors cast as Pythons for a BBC comedy drama about the release of the film in 1979.

Holy Flying Circus will tell the story of the making of Life of Brian and the righteous fury that surrounded the release of its satirical take on the gospels. It is the first attempt to dramatise the activities of the sextet who transformed the nature of comedy in this country and produced a British film now critically regarded as one of the very best.

Coming together this summer to play Michael Palin,...

Actor turned teacher, he quit the screen at the height of his fame

There are some actors who, having disappeared from the public gaze early in their careers, always prompt the question, "Whatever happened to ... ?" The answer, in the case of Paul Massie, who has died of lung cancer aged 78, is that, at the height of his fame on films and television, he gave it up at the age of 40 to teach drama at the University of South Florida in Tampa.

The son of a Baptist minister, Massie was born Arthur Massé in the city of St Catharines, in the Niagara region of Ontario. Although he was brought up in Canada, almost his entire 16-year acting career was in Britain. In fact, the only film he made in Canada was his first, Philip Leacock's High Tide at Noon (1957), a Rank Organisation melodrama shot in Nova Scotia. Although it was a bit part,...

Holy Flying Circus to focus on comedians' struggle with church, councils and critics in runup to release of controversial film

"He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy" is one of the most oft-quoted lines in British comedy history. But the religious controversy that engulfed the Monty Python film in which the quote featured, Life of Brian, on its 1979 release was no laughing matter – and is now to be the subject of a BBC drama.

Holy Flying Circus, written by Tony Roche, a co-writer of the political satire The Thick of It, will air this autumn on BBC4 and aims to use the Life of Brian controversy to explore the subject of free speech.

Monty Python's irreverent take on the story of Jesus Christ revolved around Brian Cohen, a reluctant fictional Messiah in first century Judea who is eventually crucified. Church leaders in the Us and the UK protested,...