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When The Wind Changed : The Life and Death of Tony Hancock
More than 30 years after his death Tony Hancock is still celebrated as one of the greats of British comedy.
He has the distinction of being known simply by his surname — Hancock. The word defined not only the man but his art.
The huge fame which Hancock enjoyed — and abhorred — was as short-lived as his own success.
After seven years on radio and television there was nowhere left for him to go. A form of megalomania took over.
One of the great sadnesses of Hancock’s life was that he could not enjoy the ups and downs of show business. To be accepted, and to be loved, and give such happiness to people and still repeatedly turn the dagger on himself was a real tragedy.
In this in-depth biography, Cliff Goodwin explores Hancock’s desperation to achieve perfection in comedy and his depression as a result of his perceived failure. Hancock’s career slowly spirals in a whirl of alcoholism, womanising and scandal.
Using a wealth of previously unpublished new material, Cliff Goodwin reveals at last the man behind the myth.
‘Cliff Goodwin has written an excellent and unsparing biography’ - Sunday Independent
‘Goodwin gives us the full picture of Hancock’s life … in a serious, analytical way … this is not just a story about a comedian; it encompasses the universal themes of madness and mortality.’ - Scotland on Sunday
‘… everything you ever wanted to know about a comic genius’ - Irish Times
Cliff Goodwin has worked as a reporter, feature writer and sub-editor for various newspapers and magazines. His coverage of the 1988 Lockerbie air crash earned him a regional press award. In 1993, after 25 years in journalism, he decided it was time to concentrate on full-time writing. He is also the author of To Be A Lady – a biography of Catherine Cookson.
He has the distinction of being known simply by his surname — Hancock. The word defined not only the man but his art.
The huge fame which Hancock enjoyed — and abhorred — was as short-lived as his own success.
After seven years on radio and television there was nowhere left for him to go. A form of megalomania took over.
One of the great sadnesses of Hancock’s life was that he could not enjoy the ups and downs of show business. To be accepted, and to be loved, and give such happiness to people and still repeatedly turn the dagger on himself was a real tragedy.
In this in-depth biography, Cliff Goodwin explores Hancock’s desperation to achieve perfection in comedy and his depression as a result of his perceived failure. Hancock’s career slowly spirals in a whirl of alcoholism, womanising and scandal.
Using a wealth of previously unpublished new material, Cliff Goodwin reveals at last the man behind the myth.
‘Cliff Goodwin has written an excellent and unsparing biography’ - Sunday Independent
‘Goodwin gives us the full picture of Hancock’s life … in a serious, analytical way … this is not just a story about a comedian; it encompasses the universal themes of madness and mortality.’ - Scotland on Sunday
‘… everything you ever wanted to know about a comic genius’ - Irish Times
Cliff Goodwin has worked as a reporter, feature writer and sub-editor for various newspapers and magazines. His coverage of the 1988 Lockerbie air crash earned him a regional press award. In 1993, after 25 years in journalism, he decided it was time to concentrate on full-time writing. He is also the author of To Be A Lady – a biography of Catherine Cookson.
- GenresBiography
581 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 7, 2025
I loved listening to Hancock's Half Hour when I was growing up. I enjoyed the radio show more than the follow-up TV series, and I came to idolize Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's writing perhaps a little more than Tony Hancock's perfect comedy timing. My favourite episode was Fred's Pie Stall, which contains a perfect punch line. I think it was Bill Kerr who provided the feed, telling Hancock the council are closing down the local market. Hancock will lose his favourite pies and goes into a rant on the rights of Englishmen to resist bureaucratic power. Kerr tells him Fred wasn't English. He was an Italian prisoner of war who didn't go home after the war ended. Long pause, the Hancock trademark. Then, the magnificent line - this is not an exact quote:
"You know, now you mention it, the red bandana and the gold earrings were never the hallmarks of a Surrey man."
They are wonderful memories, which made it incredibly sad to read When The Wind Changed : The Life and Death of Tony Hancock. Hancock was a combination of the stereotypical smiling clown's mask hiding a tragedian's tears and the basically unpleasant man fuelled by alcohol and envy and torn by his suppressed bisexuality. As his career progressed, in the terms expressed in Cliff Goodwin's biography, it becomes difficult to feel sympathy for a man who was falling apart and hurting everyone who came in contact with him. The magnificent Galton and Simpson, the wonderful Sid James, and the outrageous Kenneth Williams - no saint himself when it came to friendships - all carelessly pushed aside. The women in his life all abused and insulted. One ends up thinking: what a shit that man was. Perhaps he deserved the vodka and barbiturate death, alone in a room in Australia.
But then, there's Fred's Pie Stall, or The Blood Donor, or the beautiful scene with Irene Handl in his movie The Rebel in which Handl, playing his landlady, insists he can't keep his monstrosity of a sculpture in his bedsit, and I am tempted to think: No, this man was a genius in his way. Not a tortured genius. He tortured other people. But a genius nevertheless. And, given the right lines and talented support actors, a very funny one.
"You know, now you mention it, the red bandana and the gold earrings were never the hallmarks of a Surrey man."
They are wonderful memories, which made it incredibly sad to read When The Wind Changed : The Life and Death of Tony Hancock. Hancock was a combination of the stereotypical smiling clown's mask hiding a tragedian's tears and the basically unpleasant man fuelled by alcohol and envy and torn by his suppressed bisexuality. As his career progressed, in the terms expressed in Cliff Goodwin's biography, it becomes difficult to feel sympathy for a man who was falling apart and hurting everyone who came in contact with him. The magnificent Galton and Simpson, the wonderful Sid James, and the outrageous Kenneth Williams - no saint himself when it came to friendships - all carelessly pushed aside. The women in his life all abused and insulted. One ends up thinking: what a shit that man was. Perhaps he deserved the vodka and barbiturate death, alone in a room in Australia.
But then, there's Fred's Pie Stall, or The Blood Donor, or the beautiful scene with Irene Handl in his movie The Rebel in which Handl, playing his landlady, insists he can't keep his monstrosity of a sculpture in his bedsit, and I am tempted to think: No, this man was a genius in his way. Not a tortured genius. He tortured other people. But a genius nevertheless. And, given the right lines and talented support actors, a very funny one.
February 24, 2019
This is a very difficult book to like, purely because its central figure is so unpleasant, self serving, self sabotaging and disloyal. From his late teens until his early death he seems to have been trying to alienate anyone who ever cared about him. It says something about Hancock that no matter how appallingly badly he treated everyone in his life, very few people ever totally abandoned him. His TV work spoke for itself, but off stage his behaviour condemned him as a person. Clearly he had psychiatric and addiction problems, so you end up feeling sorry for him, but I can't remember reading a biography about anyone I disliked more. It's well worth a read, but don't expect it to be a comfortable one.
December 5, 2017
I started this book knowing that it might change my ideas of one of my favourite comedians
it didn't. it follows Hancock's life , from child to one of the UKs biggest stars and into his spiral of drunken despair. its very much a warts and all book
i got into Hancock by listening to an LP of the blood donor and was soon hooked, i know have all the radio shows on MP3. i prefer the radio stuff to the TV stuff
this book gives you a real insite into a man that broke the mould, that set standards, that charmed the country, and then you tag along as he hits rock bottom ...
a great book about a great man
it didn't. it follows Hancock's life , from child to one of the UKs biggest stars and into his spiral of drunken despair. its very much a warts and all book
i got into Hancock by listening to an LP of the blood donor and was soon hooked, i know have all the radio shows on MP3. i prefer the radio stuff to the TV stuff
this book gives you a real insite into a man that broke the mould, that set standards, that charmed the country, and then you tag along as he hits rock bottom ...
a great book about a great man
November 8, 2021
I'm rather obsessed by The Lad Himself. I read everything I can get my hands on about him and I regularly listen to the radio shows whilst at work. Apparently this book will pop a few of the more romanticised feelings I have about him and bring into focus a much more self-obsessed, ruthless and sometimes cruel character. Let's see.
Well ... here's a right punch up the bracket! If this book is accurate (and I rather think it is) then I didn't really like Anthony John Hancock at all, I liked Anthony Aloysius st.John Hancock of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam - as written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The Hancock I thought I sympathised with and to some extent identified with is almost all Galton & Simpson it seems. The actual Hancock appears to have been a womanising, wife beating chronic alcoholic. Not to mention a self-serving egotist, a user and (this shocked me) a frustrated bisexual.
He had terrible anxiety and confidence issues immediately before performing, and the reason much of his later work falls flat is that once the material had been written down he wouldn't stop picking at it until all spontaneity had disappeared and it had become more a description of actions than a comedy routine. At these moments he lost his confidence and then tried to mask the fear with alcohol. I can sympathise with that, but once he had got through the ordeal he then became cocky and arrogant again, forgetting his weaknesses and thinking he was top dog and could dispense with lesser beings however he saw fit.
It all went seriously wrong - the wind direction changed - during the filming of The Blood Donor. His Wife crashed the car on the way home and he was concussed. That meant he couldn't remember his lines, so the studio allowed him to use idiot boards placed around the set. It worked, so now he didn't need to learn lines anymore, which meant he could have a drink on 'work days'. The next step was being able to have a drink between takes and then the die is cast.
I'm glad I read this but I'm sorry I know what I now know.
Well ... here's a right punch up the bracket! If this book is accurate (and I rather think it is) then I didn't really like Anthony John Hancock at all, I liked Anthony Aloysius st.John Hancock of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam - as written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The Hancock I thought I sympathised with and to some extent identified with is almost all Galton & Simpson it seems. The actual Hancock appears to have been a womanising, wife beating chronic alcoholic. Not to mention a self-serving egotist, a user and (this shocked me) a frustrated bisexual.
He had terrible anxiety and confidence issues immediately before performing, and the reason much of his later work falls flat is that once the material had been written down he wouldn't stop picking at it until all spontaneity had disappeared and it had become more a description of actions than a comedy routine. At these moments he lost his confidence and then tried to mask the fear with alcohol. I can sympathise with that, but once he had got through the ordeal he then became cocky and arrogant again, forgetting his weaknesses and thinking he was top dog and could dispense with lesser beings however he saw fit.
It all went seriously wrong - the wind direction changed - during the filming of The Blood Donor. His Wife crashed the car on the way home and he was concussed. That meant he couldn't remember his lines, so the studio allowed him to use idiot boards placed around the set. It worked, so now he didn't need to learn lines anymore, which meant he could have a drink on 'work days'. The next step was being able to have a drink between takes and then the die is cast.
I'm glad I read this but I'm sorry I know what I now know.
May 17, 2018
The book is a very rewarding insight into not just the life of Hancock himself, but also the other comedians of his time (it's a thrill to see all the other well known names all milling around in "before they were famous" circumstances) and especially of the unique paradigm shift that lead to Hancock's show being a new type of comedy and the effects of such a change in thinking. If you are remotely interested in any of the above - yes, even if you like British comedy and had not heard of Hancock - it is a fantastic book, but there are two (small) caveats.
The first is no fault of the author but the last third or quarter of the book takes a sudden plunge into tragedy as it documents the wretched end of Hancock's life. The shift in tone and circumstances are truly devastating and it becomes a tough read.
The second is the author's fault and it is the bizarre decision halfway through the book to suddenly begin chapters with the sorts of enigmatic one-liner 'but it will all make sense in later context' style intrigue. It's the sort of thing you see in badly written fiction (airport novels) and the author choosing to suddenly start using it halfway into the book (when he presumably already had his captive audience) is inelegant and pointless.
It's perplexing and such a small part of the book so it shouldn't hamper the overall satisfaction but for better or worse (personally: worse), it's there.
That aside, I'd otherwise recommend the book wholeheartedly to any keen student of the original of British post-vaudeville comedy.
The first is no fault of the author but the last third or quarter of the book takes a sudden plunge into tragedy as it documents the wretched end of Hancock's life. The shift in tone and circumstances are truly devastating and it becomes a tough read.
The second is the author's fault and it is the bizarre decision halfway through the book to suddenly begin chapters with the sorts of enigmatic one-liner 'but it will all make sense in later context' style intrigue. It's the sort of thing you see in badly written fiction (airport novels) and the author choosing to suddenly start using it halfway into the book (when he presumably already had his captive audience) is inelegant and pointless.
It's perplexing and such a small part of the book so it shouldn't hamper the overall satisfaction but for better or worse (personally: worse), it's there.
That aside, I'd otherwise recommend the book wholeheartedly to any keen student of the original of British post-vaudeville comedy.
September 4, 2020
Very good. Full of facts and information but never boring, it details the life of a remarkable yet tragic man who could be endearing and appalling in equal measure. John Sessions once said that Hancock could never accept that he was a player (and, in my view, an exceptionally talented one, up there with Ronnie Barker and David Jason among comic actors) and not a composer, and he was right. Highly recommended.
September 27, 2016
a very comprehensive biography of Hancock - his success, his tortured personality and his spiral into alcoholism and his death. One is left with a feeling of sadness for wasted genius - it is quite painful to read the last quarter of the book
May 29, 2021
A steady spiral of decline
I bought this book after viewing the BBC box set of 57 episodes of his half hour.I agree with the comment by Richard Bridge that Hancock was better on radio.I remember his radio series and the tv series.Unfortunately his ego and drink got the better of him as he dispensed with anyone who had been involved with his rise to fame.
The author has written an absorbing book.Though however hard he may try he is unable to portray Hancock as an arrogant,pretentious,self centred egomaniac who cared not one bit to the pain he caused others.
There is one small error in the book.Sid Field made a quota quickie for Warner's Herrington studios in 1940,so London Town was not his first film.
I bought this book after viewing the BBC box set of 57 episodes of his half hour.I agree with the comment by Richard Bridge that Hancock was better on radio.I remember his radio series and the tv series.Unfortunately his ego and drink got the better of him as he dispensed with anyone who had been involved with his rise to fame.
The author has written an absorbing book.Though however hard he may try he is unable to portray Hancock as an arrogant,pretentious,self centred egomaniac who cared not one bit to the pain he caused others.
There is one small error in the book.Sid Field made a quota quickie for Warner's Herrington studios in 1940,so London Town was not his first film.
April 15, 2021
A very sad read about an appalling man and his dreadful life.
A very well assembled biography in strict and disciplined order of a man who treated just about everyone who loved him and supported him so appallingly. what a waste of a life, what a waste of talent.
Whilst reading the book I took time out to listen on YouTube to a couple of his best loved programmes, which drove home the sad facts about his life and those of his friends
A very well assembled biography in strict and disciplined order of a man who treated just about everyone who loved him and supported him so appallingly. what a waste of a life, what a waste of talent.
Whilst reading the book I took time out to listen on YouTube to a couple of his best loved programmes, which drove home the sad facts about his life and those of his friends
August 21, 2018
A previous review hit the mail on the head, this is very much a book of two parts. The first a fascinating glimpse into the post war comedy scene that spawned so many great comedians and the second part a sad insight into a mad who had so much potential but threw it all away. Enjoyed the first half but the second half was hard to read.
July 8, 2020
Easily one of the best books I've read about Tony Hancock. This is a very informative book and I initially thought it would read like John Fisher's Tony Hancock autobiography, however it read much faster and to the point. It was almost novel-esq. The ending was superb and gave me chills, even though I knew what was coming. A very detailed book and essential reading if you're a Hancock fan.
January 17, 2023
This is a well-written and researched biography, but it makes for a thoroughly disturbing read. Hancock the comedian and Hancock the real person had very little in common it seems. If only he'd been free of the psychic tortures he suffered from.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews