Hancock's Half Hour

Written by Galton and Simpson (if I remember right).

Excerpt from Fifty Years Of Radio Comedy

[T:] Ah dear! Oh dear, oh dear! Ah dear me! (Sigh) Stone me! What a life! What's the time?

[B:] Two o'clock.

[T:] Is that all? Ah dear, oh dear. Ah dear me. I don't know! (Sigh) (Yawn) I'm fed up!

[S:] Oi!

[T:] What?

[S:] Why don't you shut up moanin' and let me get on with the paper?

[T:] Well I'm fed up!

[S:] So you just said!

[T:] Well So I am.

[S:] Look so am I fed up and so is Bill fed up, so shut up moanin' and make the best of it!

[T:] (Sigh)

[H:] Ooh look! it's started raining!

[T:] That's all we wanted! You watch: it'll go dark in a minute and we'll have to put the lights on. I think I'll go to bed.

[H:] You've only been up an hour!

[T:] That is by-the-way and nothing to do with it. I might just as well be in bed: there's nothing else to do. (Sigh) I wish I hadn't got up now. Your dinner wasn't worth getting up for, I'll tell you that for a start!

[H:] Ah, well, I don't know, I ate mine!

[T:] That is neither here nor there. You also ate Bill's and Sid's and mine. I thought my mother was a bad cook but at least her gravy used to move about. Yours just sort of lies there and sets.

[H:] That's the goodness in it.

[T:] That's the 'alf a pound of flour you put in it! Oh, dear! (Sigh) What a life! It's Sunday, with a rotten dinner, it's rainin' and I've got nothin' to do!

[H:] There's plenty of jobs you can do round the house!

[T:] Shutup! It's day of rest - I'm not mendin' your bed again.

[S:] Aah! Read the paper, will yer?

[T:] Well, it makes you sick. I hate Sundays.

[S:] So do I. There's one week and there always 'as been and there's nothin' we can do about it.

[T:] It's not like this on the Continent: it's there big day over there. All the cafes open and football matches and race meetings - everybody's gay Aahh! Not over 'ere though! Everything's shut up.

[S:] I wish you would!

[T:] (Sigh) What's the time?

[B:] Err.. The little hand's on two and the big hand's on three.. That's.. err. three minutes past two.

[T:] It is a quarter past two.

[B:] Oh, yeah, that's right.

[T:] A quarter past two - another nine and three quarter hours before it's Monday. Depressing isn't it? I don't care very much for Monday either... and me Saturdays are always spoilt thinkin' about Sunday.

[B:] Well, the time's gradually goin'.

[T:] Thank you very much! 'Ere - I've just thought: when do you alter the clocks?

[H:] Today!

[T:] Do you put 'em forward or back?

[H:] Em.. forward.

[T:] Ah-ha-ha! That's got rid of another hour... give us the clock. Ah twenty past three. Soon be Monday.

[S:] Well, I've finished the paper... now I've got nothing to do.

Tony Hancock

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