Boxcars711 Old Time Radio Pod - Hancocks Half Hour "The Boxing Champion" (11-23-54) 104

Hancock's
Half-Hour
is the yardstick against which all subsequent British sitcoms have been
measured, the vast majority failing to size up to its extremely high standards.
Based on his famous radio show of the same name, the TV run consolidated Tony
Hancock's standing as Britain's leading comic of the day, the entertainer
providing ample proof that his wonderfully flexible face could be as expressive
as his dextrous radio voice. Tony Hancock was at the height of his powers
during the late 1950s, squeezing every comic ounce out of his lines, pulling
off perfectly judged pauses and demonstrating a sense of timing to match the
great Jack Benny's. His character - Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock - was
invariably a loser, whose aspirations and plans were dashed by fate,
circumstance, Sid James or, more often than not, his own pomposity or
unfettered ambition.