HANCOCK

[Tony Hancock and John Freeman's BBC TV 'Face to Face' interview.] Typescript, marked up for the printer, of the interview as published in the book of the series edited by the producer Hugh Burnett.

Author: 
Tony Hancock (1924-1968), comedian [John Freeman; Hugh Burnet; 'Face to Face', BBC Television series]
Publication details: 
Undated, but prepared for a book published in 1964.
£220.00

An interesting artefact of Hancock's celebrated interview by John Freeman (1915-2014), broadcast on 7 February 1960 in the BBC series 'Face to Face'. From the papers of the programme's producer Hugh Burnett (1924-2011). During the half-hour interview an earnest and humourless Hancock responded frankly to Freeman's questions about his life and work. Hancock had always been highly self-critical, and it has been argued that the interview exacerbated this tendency, contributing to his later difficulties.

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[ Ralph Reader's 'theatrical Pageant' 'Wings' (written by John Pudney), sponsored by the Air Council (Air Ministry, R.A.F. Theatre Pageant Unit). ] Material including correspondence, press releases, programmes, from papers of W. J. Macqueen-Pope.

Author: 
R.A.F. Theatre Pageant Unit; Royal Air Force; Air Ministry, London; John Pudney (1909-77), author; Ralph Reader (1903-82), theatrical impressario; W. J. Macqueen-Pope (1888-1960), theatre historian ]
Publication details: 
All items from 1947. From various locations in England, including the following in London: The Air Ministry, Adastral House. W. J. Macqueen-Pope, 359 Strand. Ralph Reader Limited, Astoria House, Shaftesbury Avenue, London.
£1,500.00

It seems curious that so little information should have survived regarding this 'mammoth show', one of Ralph Reader's 'gigantic pageants', 'sponsored by the Air Council' in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, performed at the Royal Albert Hall and in the provinces, and in which Tony Hancock played an early and prominent part (in four roles, see Item Nine below).

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[ William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire. ] Autograph Letter Signed ('Devonshire') to Sir George Scharf, regarding the loan of his gems to the International Exhibition, and the miniatures at Chiswick House.

Author: 
William Cavendish (1808-1891), 7th Duke of Devonshire, landowner and industrialist [ Sir George Scharf (1820-1895), art critic, illustrator and Director of the National Portrait Gallery ]
Publication details: 
Holker, Newton in Cartmel. 24 March 1862.
£80.00

3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. In good condition, lightly-aged.

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Autograph Letter Signed ('T. M. Stone') to Mrs Metcalfe, on an 'eulogium' to her father Frederic Carpenter Skey, delivered by the President of the Royal College of Surgeons, Henry Hancock.

Author: 
Thomas Madden Stone (d.1894), Librarian to the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London [Henry Hancock (1809-1880); Frederic Carpenter Skey (1798-1872), surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital]
Publication details: 
28 February 1873; on the letterhead of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, London.
£56.00

12mo: 2 pp. 18 lines of text. Good. Reporting that 'Mr. Hancock our President' has 'paid such a well deserved eulogium to your honoured sire in his Hunterian Oration published fully in "the Medical Times & Gazette" of last Saturday'. Stone was 'much moved by it', and said to himself 'how pleased I should have been, had his children been present to hear and see how well it was rec[eive]d.' Makes a Latin quotation that has been 'truly [...] said of your noble father'. Skey is not mentioned by name, but the item is from the Skey family archives.

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