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On what would have been his 90th birthday, comedian Tony Hancock (1924-1968) has been commemorated today with an English Heritage blue plaque on the London building where he lived when 'Hancock's Half Hour' - first on radio, then on television - made him a household name in Britain.

"Tony Hancock was the comedian's comedian," said Alan Simpson and Ray Galton, the co-writers of 'Hancock's Half Hour'. "When we were writing Hancock's Half Hour, he told us, 'You're the writers, you write, I'm the comedian, I'll comede.' And boy, could he comede. We are delighted that English Heritage is celebrating Tony with a plaque. It is a little ironic that a man who steadfastedly refused throughout his career to use any blue material should be remembered with a blue plaque."

"This blue plaque recognises a colossus of comedy," said English Heritage's blue plaque historian Howard Spencer. "In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Tony Hancock became one of Britain's first comedy superstars, a radio and television phenomenon, and his influence is still apparent today."     
 
Between 1952 and 1958, Tony Hancock lived with his wife Cicely Romanis on the fourth floor of 20 Queen's Gate Place, a Grade II listed mid-nineteenth century building just to the west of the Natural History Museum. It was the London address where he lived the longest and his five years there coincided with the most creative, successful and memorable period of his career.

In 'Hancock's Half Hour' the comedian played Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character, who lived in 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam. Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, it was first broadcast on BBC radio in 1954 and from 1956 ran concurrently with an equally successful BBC television series of the same name. It was said that streets all over Britain would empty as families gathered inside for the latest episode. Apparently even the Queen Mother confided to Hancock: "You are so popular in our house, we all stop in when Hancock's Half Hour comes on."

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