BBC to screen drama of Tony Hancock's life

[Sunite]

BBC to screen drama of Tony Hancock's life

By Bonnie Malkin and agencies
Last Updated: 3:06am GMT 24/11/2007

The BBC is to dramatise the life and death of comic genius Tony Hancock.
   
BBC to make Tony Hancock drama
Hancock committed suicide in 1968

Actor Ken Stott will play Hancock in Hancock And Joan, which charts his final year.


The one-off BBC4 drama will be based on the memoirs of Joan Le Mesurier, with whom Hancock had a doomed affair.


She was the wife of his best friend, Dad's Army favourite John Le Mesurier.

They fell in love only months into her marriage but Hancock was struggling with depression and alcoholism.

One of the biggest stars of TV and radio in the 1950s thanks to his hit show Hancock's Half-Hour, his career went downhill in the 1960s, due in large part to his drinking.

He committed suicide in an Australian hotel room in June 1968, aged 44.
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Shameless star Maxine Peake will play Joan.

BBC head of drama commissioning Ben Stephenson said the play would be "funny, moving and powerful".

"Hancock remains a much-loved national treasure and this is an extraordinary insight into the mind of a comic genius," he said.

The hour-long film will be broadcast in the spring.

It draws on Le Mesurier's autobiography, Lady Don't Fall Backwards and Edward Joffe's book Hancock's Last Stand.