Hancock’s Half Hour – The Harry Secombe Episodes Part 3

Here we are then. Week three of Hancock’s Half Hour, without Tony Hancock. It’s been a strange run of episodes so far. Everything is almost normal but not quite, simply because of the gaping Hancock shaped void at the centre of proceedings. We’re almost there,though. For one more week then, let Kenneth Williams – doing extra duty as announcer this week – usher us into this strange little alternative universe as he presents Hancock’s Half Hour, Series 2 Episode 3… The Racehorse.

KEN We present Bill Kerr, Sidney James, Andree Melly and Kenneth Williams in Hancock’s Half Hour… and in place of Tony Hancock Who is indisposed – meet Harry Secombe!

Though his regular meal ticket, Mr Tony Hancock Esq, is still absent, Mr William Kerr is still living off the fat of the land… Mr Harold Secombe Esquire. And with Andree, his French amorata to look after as well, Mr Secombe is finding it increasingly difficult to feed three mouths on the miserable pittance he gets from the BBC.

 

Interesting to note Andree’s an amorata. A word you can imagine Ken rolling gleefully around before delivering it in that way that only he does. You’ll also note that in this universe Harry’s also working for a pittance at the BBC. Not stated whether it’s his own series – like the in-continuity one Hancock’s got – or whether he’s part of another show altogether. Not much time to rewrite at this stage, presumably.

Meanwhile, things are fraught at the breakfast table.

HARRY Food, food, for pity’s sake, food. Three days ne’er a bite has passed these lips. I’m a living skeleton. Food. Food…

ANDREE Harry, calm down. Breakfast’s ready.

HARRY (Slobbering) Breakfast. Ha ha. Where is it? Where is it?

ANDREE Here you are. Bean on toast.

HARRY Come now, Andree, you must get your English right. In English the plural has an “s” on the end. Like sheeps. Understand?

ANDREE Yes. And you’ve still got bean on toast.

Times are hard and it’s all Kerr’s fault. Harry gave him ten shillings three days ago to go and get some food, and… well, you can guess where this is going to end up, can’t you?

BILL Well you see, Harry, I bumped into an old Army pal and well…

HARRY How much can we get on the empties?

BILL I didn’t booze it.

HARRY What did you do with it?

BILL I wouldn’t throw money down the drain like that.

HARRY What did you do with it?

BILL I’ve got more sense than that.

HARRY WHAT DID YOU DO WITH IT?

BILL We need food, and food costs money, so I did the only sensible, logical thing.

HARRY What?

BILL I bought a horse.

HARRY Quick, light the oven, I want the fetlocks.

Bill got himself a good bargain, or so he says. Seven and six for a prime racehorse, the thing that’s going to make their fortune. Where’s the rest of the money? Horses have to eat so Bill’s spent the rest on some hay. “I wonder what it’s like with chips?” ponders Harry.

The horse is presented to the rest of the household to a less than enthusiastic response.

BILL There you are, it’d take a keen eye to find out why I only paid seven and six for that horse.

HARRY (Flat) It’s only got three legs.

BILL Huh? Where, let me see… one two three… I’ve been cheated! So that’s why he had it standing up against that post.

ANDREE Yes, and that front leg looks a bit stiff to me.

On tapping said leg it turns out to be wood. Backed into a corner Bill defends himself by claiming all it needs is a good trainer. “He’ll have to be a good carpenter too!” is Harry’s only response.

Andree asks whether the horse – who turns out to be a she – has a name.

BILL Sabrina.

HARRY What did you call her that for?

BILL Well, I’m hoping she’ll be well out in front.

Seasoned Hancock watchers will know that Galton and Simpson peppered their scripts with references to fifties culture, and here’s a belter. Norma Ann Sykes – aka Sabrina –  appeared every week with Arthur Askey on “Before Your Very Eyes”. You can probably guess what everyone’s referring to here. Regularly mentioned in dispatches by The Goon Show as in “by the sweaters of Sabrina!” and the like, her name will appear again in latter Hancock scripts. I love it when Galton and Simpson do this. The casual, throwaway mentions of things that would be utterly familiar to the listening audience give you a real feel for a vanished world, one you’ll never know. All we can do from this remove  is peek in from the outside.

Needless to say, Bill’s made another foresighted arrangement for the training of the lovely Sabrina. The Sid James Racing Stables at Epsom are awaiting their pleasure.

HJARRY That man’s been warned off every racetrack in the country!

BILL Only under one of his names.

With a clip-clop-bonk, clip-clop-bonk, they’re off. Only as far as the nearest bus stop, though. “It’s a long way to Epsom”, protests Bill. “It’s been raining – her leg might get warped”.

Once on board, things get even stranger.

HARRY We’d better take her upstairs. The people downstairs might object.

BILL What to?

HARRY To her smoking.

BILL Don’t be ridiculous. You know very well that pipe isn’t alight.

Every bus needs a conductor and Kenneth Williams is on hand. However, he isn’t happy with a horse being on board his bus. He’s reluctant to have her stay on the grounds that she might interfere with the other passengers. Sabrina’s already eaten an old lady’s straw hat.  Harry’s offer to buy her a new one falls on deaf ears – she’d prefer the old one. “Her hair was still in it”, Kenneth tartly explains.

Thanks to Andree’s blandishments the conductor reluctantly allows them to stay on but not before Bill attempts to blag a three and a half on the grounds that Sabrina’s under fourteen. As it turns up they end up walking anyway. Sabrina keeps stamping on the floor with her wooden leg, meaning the driver thinks someone wants to get off. Interfering with corporation business is a capital offence in Kenneth’s book so it’s off they have to get.

Several hours later…

BILL Young girls of today have no stamina, that’s the trouble…. Lead a horse for fifteen miles and they’re finished.

ANDREE Well, here we are, boys. (PAUSE) Well, shall I help you down off the horse?

Having arrived at the establishment of “Honest Sidney James, the owner’s friend”, they find Sid on the phone to someone called “Nobbler”.

SID I want you to put two hundred pounds on the other horses. No, not money. Weight. I want to make sure…

Sid’s rates are fifteen guineas a day. Since Harry doesn’t have that sort of money, he agrees to a quarter share. One slight problem there. The cry goes up from Sid – “Who’s whipped my share??”

SID Do me a favour fellows, be reasonable. Do the kind thing, take her away and put her out to graze.

EFFECTS: NEIGHS

HARRY See, you’ve offended her now. She heard that. Her hearing aid must have been switched on.

Bill wants Sid to train her up to Derby winning standards. Sid remains unconvinced.

SID Billy, she’s only got two good legs… and they’re not even level.

ANDREE You could put a book under one of them.

SID That’s alright when she’s standing still What about when she races? She’ll be lopsided.

HARRY A definite advantage when she goes round the bends.

SID Only right handed ones.

Reluctantly, Sid agrees to give her a trial. Sabrina Clip-Clop-Bonks off. Enormous crashing noise off-stage. “Don’t worry Sid”, says Harry. “That won’t happen when her glasses arrive”.

You get the feeling that Ray and Alan are absolutely flying with this one, having a ball in seeing just how ridiculously decrepit they can make this poor broken down nag. They’re not done yet.

Several days later, and Sabrina’s out on a trial gallop of two hundred yards.

SID She had one six hours ago.

KENNETH It’s the same one. She’s got another hundred and twenty five yards to go.

Despite all this, Harry has entered Sabrina for the Britannia Steeplechase. Sid is horrified.

SID You must be off your chump. Besides, there’s not a jockey in the country who’d ride her.

ANDREE That’s why Harry’s going to ride her.

SID Well, good luck to him. I hope… WHA??!

ANDREE Harry.

SID Him? Jockey?

HARRY And why not?

SIDNEY Well, you’re the right height, whichever way you measure.

HARRY My size doesn’t matter. Steeplechase jockeys always weigh more.

SID Yeah, but not more than the horse.

BILL I think Harry’d make a good jockey. He gets on well with Sabrina.

SID Blimey, what a pair. His weight and her wooden leg. If the going’s soft, there’ll be a bloke following behind planting potatoes.

Some time later, the training seems to be working. Sabrina can now jump over two whole fat worms and the jockey doesn’t have to dismount and throw her over the fences like he used to. Race time is three o clock. . “Gastonia Yankee”’s on twenty to one. “Red Lion Street” hundred to eight. “Sabrina” seven hundred and fifty eight thousand to one. Yesterday, seven hundred and fifty nine thousand to one. “Just as I thought”, comments Sid. “They’re getting the wind up”.

Sabrina is led to the starting line.

EFFECTS CLIP CLOP, CLIP CLOP

ANDREE Oh Sabrina, you silly girl, you’ve forgotten something, haven’t you? Go on, go back and get it.

EFFECTS CLIP CLOP BONK, CLIP CLOP BONK

Beautiful.

Down at the racecourse Sid is despondent. Even after going round the paddock poking the other horses with a syringe stuck in the end of an umbrella, he’s still lost a heap on the first three races of the day.

SIDNEY I’m not sure, but I think there’s someone on this course who’s got a bigger umbrella than mine. I’m going to complain to the stewards, this course is full of crooks.

Bill’s put threepence on Sabrina – he wired home for it. It’s his share of Grandpa’s inheritance – “I was always his favourite”.

Harry arrives, wearing his new riding gear.

Sid ponders how they found enough material to make his silks –

ANDREE Oh, I just sewed together a pair of curtains.

BILL Where from?

ANDREE The Palladium.

SID I like the riding breeches. Did you have them made specially?

HARRY Of course not. These are my cricket flannels. My legs have always been this shape.

The weigh-in follows. Needless to say, Harry breaks the scales spectacularly. “I wonder what would have happened if I’d put both feet on?” he ponders.

It’s all up to Harry now. Sid’s given him his riding instructions.

SID The usual stuff. As soon he gets over the first fence, tip a bagful of marbles all over the track. That’ll bring a few down. And I’ve had petrol poured in the water jump. All he’s got to do is drop a match in as he goes past. If nobody cheats, we might win this.

The race begins. Things got off to a predictably bad start –

BILL Two hundred yards behind the field. Three hundred yards behind the field. Four hundred yards behind the field. Ten yards behind the field.

SID What happened?

BILL They’ve lapped him.

Somehow they stagger through to a promising position, although only because Harry goes first – Sid excitedly noting, “Blimey, look at that horse holding onto Secombe for dear life!”

It’s a close run thing, but Sabrina’s done it – Ken announces the winner, by a short leg – Sabrina.

Back at the flat glasses are chinking, and everyone’s happy.

BILL For the first time in our lives, we’re rich!

ANDREE You’ve got Sabrina to thank for that. You ought to be grateful to her.

HARRY I haven’t forgotten Sabrina. I went out this morning and bought her a lovely present.

BILL What did you get her?

HARRY Something she’s always wanted. Come on, I’ll show you, she’s out in the yard… there she is. Complete with present.

ANDREE Oh, Harry, how sweet.

BILL What a wonderful idea.

HARRY She’s very pleased with it. I’ll call her over. Sabrina, come over here, dear.

EFFECTS Horse neigh, followed by CLIP CLOP BONK BONK, CLIP CLOP BONK BONK.

With that, we’re into the end music.

What a lovely, silly script this one is. Galton and Simpson flying with an utterly ridiculous premise – pushing it as far they can go, but never cruel with it. The balance feels shifted slightly – it’s very much Sid who gets all the best lines, with Andree and Bill stooging somewhat this week. Harry doesn’t do anything that Hancock wouldn’t have done in this one – a few cracks about his weight but otherwise it’s very much business as usual. It has a really sweet ending – you can hear the audience going “aaaaaawwww” over the final gag, and it feels like it could have been one of the great radio episodes. Sadly, barring miracles it seems unlikely we’ll ever find out.

With that Secombe gracefully steps back, allowing a fully recovered Hancock to return to his place at centre mic. Following this unexpected bump in the road Hancock’s Half Hour settles back into its accustomed groove, and business continues as usual. Except it doesn’t, not quite. Hancock has a debt to pay, and he’s going to do it. Join us next time for Hancock’s Half Hour starring Tony Hancock AND Harry Secombe in … A Visit To Swansea.

Review – Steptoe and Son :The Desperate Hours

Two television legends were born in the first week of January 1962. Those watching on BBC1 would have seen the first episode of the anti-Dixon of Dock Green as Z Cars began a remarkable seventeen year run. Barlow, Watt, Lynch, Fancy and all the rest first flickered into life that week. The police didn’t like it, the public adored it.

Three days later an unassuming episode of Comedy Playhouse aired, introducing us to the father-and-son totters from Oil Drum Lane, Shepherd’s Bush. It was inevitable that a series would follow. It did, and Steptoe and Son leapt into the affection of the nation right from the start. It never left.

Working from scripts by the peerless Galton and Simpson were Wilfred Brambell as the elderly, devious, scheming, ferret-like father Albert. Actors’ Actor Harry H Corbett – the man who other actors would deliberately make time to watch if a new play was on according to Galton and Simpson – took on the part of the younger Steptoe. Forever aspiring to grandeur, given to pomposity and desperate to get away from the smothering clutches of a father who wouldn’t let him leave, Harold was a gift to Corbett and he grabbed it.

However much he might have grew to hate the part in later years, objecting to the way he became typecast, it is impossible to imagine anyone other than Corbett playing the part. Ditto Brambell as Albert. A tiny, dapper little man of impeccable dress off-set he’d disappear into the dressing room and reappear with false teeth and raggedy clothes, transformed into the half-man half-ferret that the nation grew to adore.

Many years after both the actors passed away Ray Galton and John Antrobus produced a stage show which brought the saga to a close. Murder at Oil-Drum Lane featured two uncanny impersonations by Jake Nightingale and Harry Dickman. To be fair, they couldn’t do anything else. It’s hard to think of two performances which are more tightly locked into the British Psyche than Corbett and Brambell.

Said show made a tour of “the provinces” after a triumphant West End run. Your correspondent recalls one rainy Tuesday night in Glasgow when a packed house gasped as one as a spectral Albert walked through the wall of the stage set and through the wall on the other side. Pepper’s Ghost has never been more spectacularly evoked.

Steptoe’s always been a favourite. I was brought up on it (along with Hancock, Dad’s Army, Only Fools and Horses and a plethora of other giants – which might explain my occasional rather hard-line verdict on some of the more recent sitcoms bashed out by the BBC). Even more than Hancock’s Half Hour, this is Galton and Simpson at their absolute best. The quality level is so astonishingly high – I can’t actually think of a substandard episode. There might be the odd repetition of a plot-line, and neither of the film adaptations quite carry it off but in terms of the original series it’s as good as British comedy gets. It may have become slightly broader as it went on, but that’s not really a criticism. It works as a way to keep the series fresh for both the writers and the actors, and if it means that some of that beautiful melancholy gets jettisoned in favour of watching Colin Gordon getting magnificently pissed, that’s a small price to pay.

So many wonderful moments. Harold desperately trying to push the cart in the very first episode. The ludicrous plumbing antics in Those Magnificent Men and Their Heating Machines. Albert’s birthday descending into unimaginable embarrassment in 65 Today. Harold’s furious defence of Albert in Oh What A Beautiful Mourning. The loony moment in The Siege of Steptoe Street where to prove his old man’s mad to some debt collectors, Harold yanks Albert into the yard, plonks a tricornered hat on the old man and makes him sing “Le Marsellaise”. The perfectly plotted (and riotously funny) Divided We Stand. Two’s Company, with Harold bringing an older woman home on a date only to discover that Albert has a dark secret.  The remarkable ending to Seance in a Wet Rag and Bone Yard where Harold’s deceased Mum puts in an unexpected appearance. Best of all, the aching, desperate sadness underpinning the whole series – two men bound together by circumstance, both loaded with hatred  but yet, unable to let go because deep down, they really do love each other. Dammit, it’s wonderful.

You’d think that the fiftieth anniversary of two the BBC’s most beloved series would be something that might be marked in some way. A commemorative evening of programmes, perhaps. A nice write-up in the Radio Times. Sadly, there seems to be nothing. Z-Cars hasn’t even been mentioned. Steptoe and Son managed to sneak in through a particularly oblique back door, though. Saturday the 7^th of January saw an evening of repeats on BBC2 celebrating the remarkable career of John Howard Davies.

Think of a much beloved British sitcom and it’s likely that John Howard Davies had a hand in it somewhere. The Goodies, Python, Fawlty Towers, The Good Life… you’ll find his name attached to some of the finest comedy material you could hope for. He passed away in August 2011 and it was with a certain amount of surprise that I stumbled across this little evening of repeats. An episode of The Good Life was first, with the legendary Fawlty Towers episode Gourmet Night later on before finishing with a repeat of the Comedy Connections documentary on Python. Sandwiched in among that lot Steptoe was represented by the Davies-directed episode The Desperate Hours.

This particular show has always been a favourite. I loved it as merely one of a succession of cracking episodes from a cracking series. Hailing from the penultimate series of Steptoe – ten years after the first – it shows no sign of weariness or boredom. If there is any, it’s folded into the reactions of the characters themselves to their situations, which is surely the way to do it. Having watched it again on Saturday night I suspect it may just have become my single favourite half-hour of sitcom.

The truly great episodes of any sitcom can usually be boiled down into a pithy summary which renders them instantly memorable. Hancock reads a thriller, only to discover the last page is missing. Del is horrified when Rodney brings home a new girlfriend – and it’s a policewoman. Godfrey is branded a coward and shunned by his fellow platoon members, until his real past is revealed. You know the sort of thing. The Desperate Hours can be summed up – and indeed was, by The Guinness Book of Cult TV –  as two prisoners (Leonard Rossiter and JG Devlin) escape from the Scrubs only to find themselves breaking into the one house in London that has less going for it than they do.

That is what happens, yes. As with all the greatest sitcom though, there’s a lot more going on. You can read it as a delicate little polemic on poverty. By introducing two new characters who follow a different path but are nonetheless virtually in identical situations to the two regulars it really hammers home the horror (sorry), the hopelessness of endlessly co-dependent relationships. It also shows how loving those relationships can be, even if those involved would never admit it.

It showcases Corbett and Rossiter – two of the finest actors of their generation –  working in perfect unison and driving each other’s performances to greater and greater heights. Not to be outdone, Brambell and Devlin (who would go on to cult approval as the wrinkled retainer in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End) team up to take on the two boys, each having some wonderful lines that really stick in the memory. Steptoe and Scrotum. There’s a show that could have flown. Let us not forget either, that the very title and plot reference the 1955 Bogart-starring, William Wyler-directed movie where several convicts break into and terrorise an innocent household.

It starts as it means to go on with the Steptoes in desperate straits. It’s the dead of winter.  There’s no money, only one tiny heater, and the meter keeps running out. Harold’s mucking about with the radio and intercepts the go-to-guy in 70s comedy if you want a newsreader announcement, Corbett Woodall. Two dangerous criminals are on the loose having hopped it from the scrubs (500 meters down the road, apparently). Tommy Vance then announces a record by Harold MacMillan and His Guitar Five, which proves too much for either Steptoe.

After a show-stopping sequence in which Harold goes a tiny bit demented with the cold and gets a little too wrapped up in his impersonation of a plantation owner in the days of the British Raj, the meter runs out. The door goes. Albert goes to answer it and Harold attempts to stuff the meter with Pfennigs. The camera closes in on Harold’s mutterings in the dark. He finally finds something to fit the meter, the lights go on and turning round he finds his Dad at the mercy of two dangerous, hardened criminals from the scrubs.

Although not really similar this scene reminds me of the killer-at-the-window sequence from Only Fools and Horses – Friday the 14th. Just for a moment, everything darkens slightly, and the familiar characters seem ready to be drawn into something altogether different and menacing. Admittedly the reveal in OFAH is accompanied by a fantastic reaction – someone in the studio audience actually screams – whereas here it’s played out in virtual silence. Just for a moment, you think that Rossiter is actually going to brain Brambell with that iron bar.

Johnny (the younger) and Frank (the elder) are clearly desperate, needing all the help they can get to continue their breakaway (things didn’t start well, with Frank catching his trousers on the barbed wire at the prison walls and Johnny going back to disentangle him).

Most of the best Steptoe episodes jump moods several times over half an hour. Right from the pilot episode, you’ll find one-liners snuggling up next to moments where Corbett and Brambell really play on the heartstrings. There’s a lot of both here, plus some remarkable high-strung, edge-of-hysteria playing from Rossiter (a stock in trade, and there was never anyone better). Before too long our characters have paired off, with Harold and Johnny bemoaning the uselessness of their older partners, Albert and Frank pouring scorn on the younger two for their lack of gratitude and respect for the old.

It really is remarkable the way the script flips between the two – you find yourself rooting for Frank and Johnny in a way you never quite expected when they first appeared. Recognising someone who seems to be in the same pickle as he is, Harold cosies up to Johnny. Within seconds he’s bumming cigarettes off him, desperately trying to stop him eating the goldfish (“he’s magnified, he’s really only this size” – tiny little gesture with thumb and forefinger) and firing off shots at Albert and Frank like there’s no tomorrow. One of the highlights comes when Harold suggests that if Johnny had turned up a few weeks earlier when fortunes were better, might have got on better. Rossiter responds with a scathing “awfully sorry, just couldn’t get away”. Rossiter is at his absolute best here. If you ever wanted to explain to someone just why he’s so beloved, this episode is the perfect primer as it shows him really stretching his range. The man had few equals. One of those few is right alongside him here, and they egg each other on towards greatness.

Meanwhile, Frank’s taken greatly to Albert’s meal of this morning’s cold porridge – the more lumps in it the better – and the two old men form a gentle bond. In a remarkable moment Albert – finally driven too far by more uncaring remarks than he can stand – roars furiously at Johnny before realising he’s facing a convict with an iron bar. Brambell goes from boiling anger to cowardly diffidence in seconds. Usually underrated (mostly by me, I’m afraid – what a fool I can be) next to the pyrotechnics that his younger partner indulges in, Brambell… well, he’s superb.

He also gets a moment that puts a chill right down my back. When he’s at his most defensive, Albert snaps at the younger men, “just you wait until you’re our age”. The tragedy is, neither of them will reach that age. Both Rossiter and Corbett died horribly young. Brambell and Devlin outlasted them by a considerable margin and that moment… well, it hurts. Just think what they could have been doing by now. We were robbed. Comedy was robbed. Drama was robbed. Worst of all, they were robbed. Both had so much to give. Both cut short. Awful.

By the last moments both pairings actually seem to have become friends. Johnny softens up, giving Harold his fags, not to mention a shilling for the meter. Recognising he’ll never be able to cut Frank loose (memorably illustrated by the old man’s desperate pleas not to be left behind, in a way that actually becomes quite upsetting), he gathers the old man up and prepares to go, hoping to be back at the scrubs in time for supper. Both Albert and Frank share one last moment, allowing a little bit of  love for their respective boys to show through. At which point, the meter goes again. Harold cadges one last shilling from Johnny.

When the lights go up they’re gone, leaving Harold with the last word – “Ah, well. Better go and lock the cage up for the night.” Four men, two prisons, within 500 yards of each other. None of them will ever escape each other, and by now Harold’s pretty much given up trying. It’s a low-key way to end the episode, but it works. It ties things up, leaves the Steptoes exactly where we found them (although Harold’s richer, by one packet of smokes) and leaves us in no doubt that underneath the bluster, they really are locked together. Forever.

There really aren’t enough superlatives to describe how great this episode is. I fear I may already have used most of them. It’s just… well, just look at that script. Galton and Simpson, writing out of their skin, as they did most weeks, delivering it to the two actors most perfectly suited to realise it. Two great guest stars. It’s crammed with jokes, but it’s not afraid to belt you one in the uncomfortables when it needs to.

Davies realises it perfectly – broad shots when necessary, as in the opening scenes. Camera tight in on faces or in two shots as and when, but roaming about freely, following whoever it needs to in order to make that script really work. Lovely subtle touches – it was only on this last viewing that I realised that there’s rain pouring down outside the back window of the Steptoe living room. Must have been hell to make it work in a studio, but it really does add to the atmosphere. It’s almost subliminal – you sort of take it in, and it makes you realise how foul it actually must be outside. Interested observers will surely be delighted to spot that the life-size stuffed black bear standing in the corner of the living room appears to be playing a trumpet this week.

The whole thing appears to be done in one, maybe two takes. I’m sure it wasn’t, but it flows so smoothly that it feels like a one-act play, delivered straight through. You’ll rarely see a script more perfectly realised. Unless you’re watching something directed by Bob Speirs. Or Ian McNaughton. Or Duncan Wood. Or David Croft. God, we were so lucky to have them. How many hours of great television did they leave us with?

So far as I’m concerned, this is as good as British television gets. It may be merely enough to call it a fine example of sitcom. It is, but it is also so much more. The repeat on Saturday may have been a tribute to John Howard Davies. It also serves as a tribute to a group of creators who gave us the best they had, every week. The best, working with the best, delivering the best. I’ll always be grateful.