[1] High-profile during the 1950s and early 1960s, he had a major success with his BBC series Hancock's Half Hour, first broadcast on radio from 1954, then on television from 1956, in which he soon formed a strong professional and personal bond with comic actor Sid James.

[10] He later worked in a double act with musician Derek Scott at the Windmill Theatre, a venue which helped to launch the careers of many comedians at the time.

"But mention must made of a new young comedian…who with a piano partner, gives some brilliant thumbnail impressions of a “dud” concert party.

[13] In July 1949, he was praised for his work in the summer presentation of "Flotsam's Follies" at the Esplanade Concert Hall, Bognor Regis.

At Christmas 1950, Hancock was in the "Red Riding Hood" pantomime at the Theatre Royal Nottingham playing the part of Jolly Jenkins, the Baron's page.

[17] In 1951–1952, for one series beginning on August 3, 1951,[18] Hancock was a cast member of Educating Archie,[19] in which he mainly played the tutor (or foil) to the nominal star, a ventriloquist's dummy.

The same year, he began to make regular appearances on BBC Television's light entertainment show Kaleidoscope, and almost starred in his own series to be written by Larry Stephens, Hancock's best man at his first wedding.

Working with scripts from Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, Hancock's Half Hour lasted for seven years and over a hundred episodes in its radio form, and, from 1956, ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series with the same name.

Some episodes, however, changed this to show him as being a successful actor and/or comedian, or occasionally as having a different career completely, such as a struggling (and incompetent) barrister.

His character would often be dishonest and exploit Hancock's apparent gullibility during the radio series, but in the television version there appeared to be a more genuine friendship between them.

Returning home with his wife from recording "The Bowmans", an episode based around a parody of The Archers, Hancock was involved in a car accident and was thrown through the windscreen.

He was not badly hurt, but suffered concussion and was unable to learn his lines for "The Blood Donor", the next show due to be recorded.

He argued, for example, that whenever an ad-hoc character was needed, such as a policeman, it would be played by someone like Kenneth Williams, who would appear with his well-known oily catchphrase "Good evening".

[26] Hancock starred in the film The Rebel (1961), in which he plays the role of an office worker-turned-artist who finds himself successful after a move to Paris, but only as the result of mistaken identity.

[citation needed] According to his agent at the time, Beryl Vertue his break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with her.

During the previous six months, the writers had developed – without payment and in consultation with the comedian – three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle.

The result of the break was that he chose to separately develop something previously discussed, and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write a Comedy Playhouse series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot for Steptoe and Son.

That "something previously discussed" became The Punch and Judy Man, for which Hancock hired writer Philip Oakes, who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay.

The extent to which the character played by Hancock had merged with his real personality is clear in the film, which owes much to his memories of his childhood in Bournemouth.

[26] Hancock moved to ATV in 1962 with different writers, though Oakes, retained as an advisor, disagreed over script ideas and the two men severed their professional (but not personal) relationship.

Hancock starred in the adverts with Patricia Hayes as the character "Mrs Cravatte" in an attempt to revive the Galton and Simpson style of scripts.

Slightly earlier, in 1963, he had featured in a spoof Hancock Report – hired by Lord Beeching to promote his plan to reduce railway mileage in advertisements.

[29] Hancock continued to make regular appearances on British television until 1967, including a 50-minute show for BBC2 from the Royal Festival Hall, which was poorly received.

Two unsuccessful variety series for ABC Weekend TV, The Blackpool Show (1966) and Hancock's (1967), were his last work for British television.

Joan was later to describe the relationship in her book Lady Don't Fall Backwards,[35] including the claim that her husband readily forgave the affair; he is quoted as saying that if it had been anyone else he would not have understood it, but with Tony Hancock it made sense.

Arriving in Blackpool to record an edition of his variety series, Hancock was met by pressmen asking about his wife's attempted suicide.

Freddie Hancock survived her broken marriage and resumed her career as a prominent publicist and agent in the film and television industry.

Based in New York City for many years, she founded the East Coast chapter of BAFTA, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

There is also a plaque, placed by the Dead Comics Society, at 10 Grey Close, Hampstead Garden Suburb, north London, where he lived in 1947 and 1948.

He also wrote a song called "Lady Don't Fall Backwards" after the book at the centre of the Hancock's Half Hour episode "The Missing Page".