Hancock's Half Hour (BBC)

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Hancock's Half Hour was a ground-breaking and influential BBC radio comedy series of the 1950s, starring Tony Hancock, with Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Bill Kerr and Kenneth Williams. From 1956 it also became a television comedy series. The show was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and produced by Dennis Main Wilson, although, after Main-Wilson departed for his television career, this role was later taken by Tom Ronald. The distinctive tuba-based theme tune was composed by Wally Stott. Most radio episodes were recorded between one day and three weeks in advance, except in the case of Series 6 which was mostly recorded over a three-week period in June, 1959 to avoid clashing with the pre-recording of Series 5 of the television show. All of the regular cast members played "themselves", except Kenneth Williams (who played a series of unnamed characters referred to in the scripts -- but not on air -- as "Snide"); Alan Simpson (who played an unnamed man who would listen patiently to Hancock's long-winded stories); and Hattie Jacques (who played Hancock's secretary Griselda Pugh).