The Man on the Corner

Tony Hancock is standing on a street corner minding his own business. However a policeman thinks Tony is up to no good, loitering without intent.

Tony seems to be on the same street corner everyday, people spotting he claims. He then spots what could be a foreign spy passing an envelope in a suspicious manner.

He is convinced that the other man is a spy. So he goes to the security services who thinks that Tony is just a crank.

They even give him a number to ring with a secret codeword. It is just a staff canteen.

However Tony takes it upon himself to follow this furtive character.

Maybe it is all the fault of the bad weather due to the testing of the atom bomb. Now that Tony is standing in the street corner watching the spies go by.

It is all pretty silly. Yet it somehow has the feel of Hancock's earlier BBC shows. Once again there are straight actors such as James Villiers and Geoffrey Keen. I was impressed with how Villiers did his comedy bits with gusto.

Just saw this on Youtube, and wanted to comment that the previous review from 2009 seems to be a fairly inaccurate summary of what happens in this episode. It's pretty clear that the agent that Hancock sees doesn't "accept his claim"; he just tells him to keep investigating and gives him the number thirteen just to get rid of him, and the "Canteen" whose phone number he gives out is a local restaurant, with no connection to M15 or any spy agency. This is a funny episode, maybe not as well written as the classic Galton and Simpson shows, but, as always, wonderfully performed by Hancock. The episodes of this show that I have found on the internet seem to indicate that it is underrated.