Tony Hancock - Later Years

Later Years

He moved to ATV in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, did not value their work, and the two men severed their professional relationship. The principal writer of Hancock's ATV series, Godfrey Harrison, had scripted the successful George Cole radio and television series A Life Of Bliss, and also Hancock's first regular television appearances on Fools Rush In (a segment of Kaleidoscope) more than a decade earlier. Harrison had trouble meeting deadlines, so other writers were commissioned, including Terry Nation.

Coincidentally, the transmission of the series clashed in the early months of 1963 with the second series of Steptoe and Son written by Hancock's former writers, Galton and Simpson. Critical comparisons did not favour Hancock's series. Around 1965 Hancock made a series of 11 TV adverts for the Egg Marketing Board. Hancock starred in the adverts with Patricia Hayes as Mrs Cravatte in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts.

Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, but by then alcoholism had affected his performances. After hosting two unsuccessful variety series for ABC Television, The Blackpool Show and Hancock's, he was contracted to make a 13-part series called Hancock Down Under for the Seven Network of Australian television. This was to be his first and only television series filmed in colour; however, after arriving in Australia in March 1968 he only completed three programmes, which remained unaired for several years.