S1 E2 - Very Nearly an Armful - The First Night Party

Very Nearly an Armful - A Tony Hancock Podcast

We chat about our week including finds for the THAS archives; photo’s of Tony playing Cricket and an original script for an episode of HHH which has been offered to us.

In Hancock news, Martin discusses the donation from the estate of the late Alec Bregonzi who appeared in HHH and tapes sent to the society which we check over for lost or unedited recordings of episodes. James talks about the wolf whistle heard on tapes of Hancock in the Police, and James Hurn’s stage performance of this episode in 2019, which can be found on YouTube… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47YFc7MUE88

We introduce The First Night Party and we talk over the episode and creation of the show, edited lines from the original script, which runs to 10 pages longer than the episode. The Chef ‘Iggins is mentioned along with Alan Simpson’s cameo’s in HHH, how the cast came to work together and how Tony met Galton & Simpson. Jon continues to ‘channel’ Kenneth Williams with his daft impressions and brings up how satirical this episode is and its use of sound, whilst Tim mentions how unique the programme was with its use of timing and we talk about the excellent lines cut from existing recording of the show.

Other topics include Angela Morley’s composition of the music and Adrian Waller; the original Announcer of the show.

This episode also features clips from Hancock in the Police, Star Bill, Calling All Forces, The Sleepless Night, Hancock’s School, The Boxing Champion,

Script readings of cut lines from the original script are performed by James Mickley, Helen Bridge and Andrew Swan.