Tony Hancock The Definitive Biography by John Fisher

Author:John Fisher
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Autobiography, Biography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780007287789
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2008-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

FACE TO FACE AND ABOUT-FACE

‘I no more got rid of Sid than I got rid of myself.’

When Roger Hancock was asked to identify the tipping point when his brother began the slide from conscientious professional who worked at each line of dialogue like a master craftsman to doomed obsessive set on a course of unhealthy introspection and self-destruction, he identified his 1960 appearance on the John Freeman television programme, Face to Face. Of the occasion he recalls, ‘It was the biggest mistake he ever made. I think it all started from that really. He should never have done it. Tony was an intelligent man, but he was not an intellectual, and it gave him the impression that he was a thinker. He was very interested in where we’d all come from. He said, “You’re not a bit interested in this,” and I said, “No, I’m not. Just get on with the act.” But he was carried away by John’s intellect, thinking he was on the same plane. Self-analysis – that was his killer.’ When he shifted that mind-set to his comedy the result was as disastrous as if the celebrated journalist had donned red nose and party hat to interview one of the loftier minds that comprised the staple fare of his programme. If only Hancock had taken heed of Chaplin’s admission: ‘I remain one and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.’ Barry Humphries was even more down to earth when he said, ‘There is no more terrible fate for a comedian than to be taken seriously.’

John Freeman’s journalistic credentials were wrapped up in his links with the New Statesman magazine, which he went on to edit between 1961 and 1965. He had served as a junior minister under Clement Attlee in the Labour government elected in 1945, from which he resigned alongside Harold Wilson and Aneurin Bevan when Hugh Gaitskell, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, instigated prescription charges against the spirit of the National Health Service Act. He resigned from the Commons in 1955 and soon established himself as a political journalist. A distinguished later career embraced posts as High Commissioner in India between 1965 and 1968 and as Ambassador to the United States in Washington from 1969 until 1971. Adjectives like ‘surgical’ and ‘incisive’ were used to describe his interviewing style, which hid behind a veneer of relaxed charm. No extrovert seeker of the limelight himself, Freeman took self-effacement to paradoxical low-profile levels for a performer who must be regarded as a pioneer among the high-profile personality interviewers who now dominate the screen. With only the back of his head visible during the course of the interview, his approach allowed the viewer uninterrupted scrutiny of the subject. In this way the ambience of the show, with its sterile setting and concentrated lighting, conveyed something of the military intelligence chamber, something of a psychiatric session. The producer Hugh Burnett admitted years later that one of

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