[HANCOCK, Tony] STUCKEY, Hugh and WALE, Michael

N.p. [Sydney]: N.p. [ATN-7], 1968

80 mimeographed pp. on white paper, housed in contemporary black springback binder with three labels to front cover ('HANCOCK'; 'TONY HANCOCK SPECIAL'; 'POST PRODUCTION MASTER SCRIPT E.D. JOFFE'). Profusely annotated, revised and corrected on every page, typed inserts tipped in in many places, and scene tags taped to leading edges.

DIRECTOR'S POST-PRODUCTION SCRIPT OF THE TONY HANCOCK SPECIAL, WITH HIS EXTENSIVE NOTES AND REWRITES.

n March 1968 Tony Hancock travelled to Australia to make a television series with the working title Hancock Down Under, a project he hoped would revive his career. He had recently been divorced, his alcoholism was out of control, and his prospects in the UK had sunk to nothing. But the Australian series had serious problems from the outset, quite apart from Hancock's own. The scripts were terrible: feebly structured, hopelessly unfunny, and with no understanding of what made Hancock Hancock. The star would have struggled to make anything of them even in his pomp. The series' fate was sealed by the producers' disastrous decision to shoot without a studio audience. Hancock's onscreen persona -- hapless, loveless, forever on the receiving end -- had always been kept afloat by the presence of supportive laughter provided by an audience willing their hero to dust himself down and try again. And Hancock himself, Hancock the brilliant but under-confident performer, had always been buoyed by the instant approval their presence provided. But here, in this final footage, Hancock seems to have been deserted by his audience just when he needed them most. He cuts a lonely, tragic and desperately unfunny figure. Unable to remember his lines, his eyes are constantly looking for his cue cards. He seems to be searching for his friends.

On 24 June 1968, with only three episodes of the showcompleted, Hancock committed suicide with an overdose of barbitu

PHILLPOTTS, Eden and Adelaide

London: Duckworth, N.d. [1927]

8vo, pp. 128. Original patterned three-quarter boards, lettered in gilt on white hessian spine.

Commemorative edition, produced to celebrate the play's first anniversary, this copy... [more]

[illus. SELLERS, Peter] MILLIGAN, Spike and HOBBS, Jack

London: M. & J. Hobbs/Michael Joseph, 1976

8vo, pp. 144. Original black boards, lettered in gilt to spine. Yellow illustrated endpapers. Illustrated... [please click on the image or book title for more details]"Can we have dinner before you go to Munich???" [doodled self-portrait with speech bubble] PHONE Walton-on-Thames either 21267 or 21126 J.' (Sellers was due to fly to Bavaria to film the castle sequences for The Pink Panther Strikes Again.)

Milligan and Sellers had appeared together in The Great McGonagall [1974], with Milligan in the title role and Sellers as Queen Victoria. Milligan and Hobbs co-authored The Great McGonagall Scrapbookwhich was published the following year. This title followed in 1976, with two further McGonagall-related titles appearing in 1988 and 1992.

Illustrating duties on this volume are shared roughly equally between Sellers and Milligan, with Sellers the distinctively heavier hand (though no less funny), helpfully accompanied by a (printed) signature.

A lovely association, and a lovely copy too.

N.p. 1985 [The show was eventually transmitted in 1988-9].

Large 8vo, pp. 10, printed on rectos only, bound between yellow wrappers with a split pin.

Sir John... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

KUREISHI, Hanif

London: Faber, 2006

8vo, pp. 111. Original illustrated card wrappers.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO DAVID GOTHARD, in the usual mode of address between the two: 'To my wife with love, as Ever -- HK.' ... [more]

[ed. CARTER, Graydon]

New York: Rodale, 2009

Large 8vo, pp. 215. Original blue boards, lettered in blind on spine.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY OLIVIA DE HAVILLAND TO THE FILM DIRECTOR... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

GROTOWSKI, Jerzy

Holstebro, Denmark: Odin Teatrets Forlag, 1968

8vo, pp. 262. Original printed stiff paper wrappers.

First edition, SIGNED BY GROTOWSKI ON TITLE PAGE. With a... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[TERRY-THOMAS]

London: N.p. [BBC], 1951

21 mimeographed pp. of 36, [pp. 2-7, 14-21, 31-36], secured with split pin to top left. Rewrite to p. 21 secured by pins top and bottom. Pencilled... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

HASTINGS, Michael

London: Royal Court Theatre, 1984

8vo, pp. 41. Original illustrated stiff paper wrappers.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR TO HIS ACCOUNTANT ON FRONT FREE... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

CUSHING, Peter

Whitstable: N.p., 1993

1 p. TLS on Peter Cushing's personalised stationery. Unfolded.

TLS FAN LETTER FROM PETER CUSHING TO LEO McKERN DATED 16 SEPTEMBER 1993, LESS THAN A YEAR BEFORE CUSHING'S DEATH.

A warm, effusive fan letter from cinema's greatest vampire-slayer, it reads:

'Dear Leo McKern,
It's that fan again! Some years ago I wrote to you about your superb 'Rumpole' series, and received a most charming letter of thanks.

My admiration for your work goes back to the play (and subsequent film) 'A Man For All Seasons', and you have never failed to captivate me. Having seen you recently in 'Travelling North', and again the other evening in 'A Foreign Field' I just had to write once more.There is a 'je-ne-sais-quoi' quality about your performances which touches the heartstrings, and if you don't receive some public recognition eventually, there's no justice in this world!

Thank you, dear fellow, for such pleasure. It makes me very proud to remember we worked together in 1956 in 'Time Without Pity', with Michael Redgrave and Ann Todd. (Long ago and far away!)

With kindest wishes, and may God's blessing be with you always.

As ever,
(sgd) Peter Cushing O.B.E. Whitstable, Kent'

(The 'public recognition' Cushing refers to is of course not audience approval, but the possible future conferring of honours on McKern: Cushing himself was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1989).

A touching salute to a fellow actor from one of the most distinctive and distinguished figures of British cinema.

BROMLEY, Nick

London: LNP Books, 2012

8vo, pp. 248. Original stiff paper wrappers.

First edition, SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR ON HALF-TITLE. Foreword by Simon Callow.
The subtitle ... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

TAYLOR, Ted

N.p. [London]: N.p. [BBC], N.d. [1957]

32 mimeographed pp., secured with split pin to top left corner.

First edition. PRODUCTION COPY OF THE TRIAL RECORDING, WITH... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[HANCOCK, Tony] STUCKEY, Hugh and WALE, Michael

N.p. [Melbourne]: N.p. [ATN 7], 1968

31 mimeographed yellow pp., originally stapled at top left corner, now disbound, pp. 17-18 present in facsimile. 'FINAL SCRIPT' to top... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

[POWELL, Michael] GIBBON, Monk

London: Saturn Press, 1951

4to, pp. 96. Original blue boards, lettered in gilt on spine. Cockerel device in gilt to front panel.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

SHAFFER, Peter

London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964

8vo, pp. 84. Original brown boards, lettered in silver to spine. Photographic dustwrapper.

First edition.

Shaffer's first... [please click on the image or book title for more details]

BAILEY, Pearl

New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1968

8vo, pp. 206. Original orange boards, lettered in black on front panel and spine.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR ON TITLE PAGE: 'To Cole -- Who loves deeply -- Pearl'.
Published in 1968, the year Bailey won a Tony for her performance in the all-black production of Hello, Dolly!<