Hancock's Half Hour (1956)

Name: Hancock's Half Hour
Genre: Comedy
Rating: 8.4
Cast: Tony Hancock

Comedy

Hancock's Half Hour is a BBC television comedy series of the 1950s and 60s written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. The series starred Tony Hancock with Sid James. The final series, renamed simply Hancock, starred Hancock alone. Comedian Tony Hancock starred in the show, playing an exaggerated and much poorer version of his own character and lifestyle, Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock, a down-at-heel comedian living at the dilapidated 23 Railway Cuttings in East Cheam. The series was influential in the development of the situation comedy, with its move away from radio variety towards a focus on character development.

IMDb rating: 8.4 (653 votes)
Episode average: 7.7 -0.7 vs IMDb
Seasons: 4
Language: EN
Type: TV series

Shape drift trajectory: its last season breaks the pattern the earlier ones set. Rising Shows ranks whole shows by the shape of their rating trend rather than one average score, which is how you find a show that got better rather than a show that started well. See every Shape drift show in the explorer →

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Ratings refreshed Oct 3, 2026 · 4 seasons indexed

Cast

Tony Hancock

Seasons

Season 3 (1957)

7.40 avg 5 episodes 7.6 → 6.5

Season 3 episodes - IMDb ratings
#	Title	Rating	Votes
5	Air Steward Hancock	7.6	40
9	The Lawyer: The Crown v James S.	7.8	55
10	How to Win Money and Influence People	7.5	46
11	There's an Airfield at the Bottom of My Garden	7.6	39
12	Hancock's Forty-Three Minutes	6.5	29

Season 4 (1958)

7.46 avg 5 episodes 7.5 → 7.1 30 min avg

Season 4 episodes - IMDb ratings
#	Title	Rating	Votes
1	Ericson the Viking	7.5	33
3	The Set That Failed	8.1	43
4	The New Nose	7.2	36
11	The Oak Tree	7.4	42
12	The Knighthood	7.1	32

Season 5 (1959)

7.87 avg 10 episodes 8.6 → 8.1 29 min avg

Front-loaded

Season 5 episodes - IMDb ratings
#	Title	Rating	Votes
1	The Economy Drive	8.6	52
2	The Two Murderers	8.2	45
3	Lord Byron Lived Here	8.2	49
4	Twelve Angry Men	8.4	72
5	The Train Journey	7.6	34
6	The Cruise	7.8	44
7	The Big Night	7.6	36
8	The Tycoon	7.2	35
9	Spanish Interlude	7.0	33
10	Football Pools	8.1	37

Season 6 (1960)

7.82 avg 10 episodes 7.7 → 8.2 30 min avg

Season 6 episodes - IMDb ratings
#	Title	Rating	Votes
1	The Cold	7.7	47
2	The Missing Page	8.8	58
3	The Emigrant	7.4	31
4	The Reunion Party	8.3	45
5	Sid in Love	7.9	32
6	The Baby Sitters	7.4	32
7	The Ladies' Man	7.5	35
8	The Photographer	7.5	39
9	The East Cheam Centenary	7.5	32
10	The Poison Pen Letters	8.2	35

Hancock's Half Hour (1956)

Cast

Seasons

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