Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Cast: Kevin McNally, Katy Wix, Kevin Eldon, Robin Sebastian, John Culshaw, Robert Jack.
The beauty, pathos and reflection of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s writing can be seen fully in two of Britain’s greatest ever sitcoms, Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, both written with consideration and absolute wit, performed by comedic geniuses and with the knowledge that even after 60 years in the case of Hancock’s Half Hour, the words and situations are timeless, that no matter how much we move on in society, we still are products of the post Second World War generation.
We also still live in very much the same way, the insides our castles may contain different toys and furnishings but essentially we still maintain that peek through the curtains, the twitching of local gossip, the urban telegraph in hot pursuit of a story when somebody new moves into the street; it is a premise captured superbly in the B.B.C.’s Lost Sitcom season as Kevin McNally reprises his 2015 Edinburgh Fringe Festival role as Tony Hancock in The New Neighbour.
As with the stage performances at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015, both Kevin McNally and Robin Sebastian gave performances that would have had both Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams sitting in the ethereal beyond hugging themselves at the warmth and exactness of the characterisation. For both Mr. McNally and Mr. Sebastian never mind what they have done before and for both gentlemen that is a long list of excellent productions, this could be seen as the pinnacle, the memory of what British television, British comedy, was once capable of putting on television.
The flowing nature of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson’s script, one of the many lost episodes that the B.B.C. in its infinite wisdom decided to wipe and lose in its course of custodian of the past, meant that the viewer, the fan of arguably one of Britain’s most respected sitcoms mused gently over the thought that this particular series could be brought back, that it should not be a one off.
With a touch of the superb brought in by the surrounding players, this one time radio and television hit lived and breathed again in colour, in the 21st Century and not once did you ever think that Kevin McNally could not play the Birmingham born, South coast raised hero. Vocally perfect, hang dog expression just right, this was Tony Hancock of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam living as if he had never been away.
Ian D. Hall