Tony Hancock, the Bay Hotel Guest Register and Prince Aly Khan
To the Editor
You are maybe already into this link to the sketch by Tony Hancock as Aly Aga Khancock, link attached. Who signed, the real or the alias?
http://www.tonyhancock.org.uk/episode-guide/radio/series-3
The real prince was in Sussex though for the races in the 1950s with his horses.
Deborah Sadki
EDITOR COMMENT: The news and confirmations in the study of the guest register of the Bay Hotel by Lynda Leventon, whose family were the landlords of the hotel between 1954 and 1971, is continuing to uncover a tresaure trove of information. Here one of our regular readers points jokingingly to the remarkable coincidence that in an episode of the Tony Hancock’s series, ‘Hancock’s Lost Half Hour’, that there is a character with the name ‘Sheikh Aly Aga Khancock”.
The name of Prince Aly Khan , also appears in the guest register of the Bay Hotel. A short account of his life is available here.
Prince Aly Khan (line 6) Bay Hotel Guest Register
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The information about the episode, recorded by the Hancock Appreciation Society, explains the way in which the name is utilised in the script titled ‘Cinderella Hancock’.
The Guest Register at the Bay Hotel in Pevensey Bay is becoming something of interest to a wide range of people.
A complete coincidence of course that both the names of Tony Hancock and Prince Aly Khan appear in the same guest register of a hotel here in Pevensey Bay, but what a useful source of information, for cross referencing and research for biographers, researchers and social historians of the nineteen fifties, and in particular the history of radio comedy in this country.
11 Cinderella Hancock 28.12.55
(with Dora Bryan) This episode is missing from the archives despite being repeated in it’s own Sunday slot and again in June 1956.This episode was a new recording of the 10th episode of the 1st series (the original does survive in the archives). This re-make features the same cast as the original other than Paul Carpenter.
The episode due to be recorded as number 11 in the series was The Counterfeiter. However, the script was rejected by Hancock and so the writers adapted one of their earlier scripts at short notice. Ray and Alan can’t remember why the The Counterfeiter was rejected but there were long scenes in the script without Tony (Bill had the starring role in these scenes), so this may have been the reason.
In true pantomime fashion, Bill forces Hancock to do the housework and forbids him to go to the National Film Ball. However, he manages to escape and goes as Sheikh Aly Aga Khancock but his costume has to be back bymidnight.
—aource, Hancock Apprecation Society
Worth noting in this instance, that in her memory of Tony Hancock at the Bay Hotel, Lynda Leventon recalls that she came home from school aged about 10 and saw Tony Hancock drinking with her father in the bar and and he ‘used to swim at Pevensey Bay at 4:00pm, as late as October in the year’. Here, with the signature of Tony Hancock in the guest registerl, there does indeed seem to be confirmation that he was here at the Bay Hotel. Tony Hancock signs the register 5:10:59.
Line 4: Tony Hancock signature: Bay Hotel Guest Register from the fifties
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