TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

Having signed Tony Hancock for the ill-fated hosting job on The Blackpool Show the year before ABC decided to give him another chance, or possibly just to fulfil a contract, and place him in a new sit-com.

Hancock described the show as a "simple comedy with a kick." The "kick" would be a situation which found Hancock as a nightclub manager. This provided him with a regular team of supporting players, just like his classic Hancock's Half Hour, but unlike that classic he was given practically unknown writers, Eric Green and John Muir, the duo that had provided his jokes for the previous year's Blackpool Show.

Although it seemed to be a sit-com, in fact it was a disguised variety show, with the nightclub setting conveniently hosting singers every week, like Carmen McRae, Dick Haymes and Vikki Carr.

The nightclub itself had a grubby recent history, so Hancock's character spent an unreasonable amount of money and time renovating it, even employing an orchestra, predictably leaving little money for trustworthy and/or competent staff. So, June Whitfield's character Esmerelda Stavely-Smyth multi-tasked as waitress, hat-check woman, cigarette seller and "bunny." Hancock claimed "In certain ways, the series is a send-up of swinging London - a sort of search for the Carnaby Street mentality applied to a nightclub." The situation gave Hancock the scope to show off his various well-established nightclub routines, the bad actor, the bad dancer, the bad singer etc. He would also endeavour to make the club as "with it" as he could, even encouraging his waiter to go topless in one show.

Despite being made by ABC, a weekend broadcaster, it wasn't actually shown by them. It would played by various stations across the ITV network, some on a Thursday, some on a Friday, and then quickly moved to Tuesdays after the third show. Like so many ITV produced shows of the time it fell fowl of the network's lack of scheduling continuity. This was no surprise for programme makers at the time, but its indecision was telling. No one knew what to do with it.

Despite ABC's reticence Hancock himself seemed to be having fun "There's a greater intimacy between the audience and the performer. You feel right there with them. We spent a long time getting the 'Hancock's' set just as we wanted it. I think it's excellent."

But his ill-health was still evident, and he wasn't getting any better. His final TV appearance in the UK would also be for ABC on The Eamonn Andrews Show in January 1968. Maybe he was hoping that he would find favour with an employer by keeping an appointment.

It appears to have lasted just six episodes, with only the final five minutes of one show surviving on a rare off-air recording.

HANCOCK'S

ABC

15th June 1967 - 18th July 1967