Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse are to portray comedy writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson in a new radio play, When Alan Met Ray, broadcasting on Radio Four this week, which is set in Milford Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Surrey where they first met in 1948.
Galton and Simpson were a British comedy scriptwriting duo, who wrote for radio, television and film, consisting of Ray Galton (17th July 1930 – 5th October 2018) and Alan Simpson OBE (27th November 1929 – 8th February 2017). They are best known for their work with comedian Tony Hancock on radio and television between 1954 and 1961 and their long-running television situation comedy, Steptoe and Son, aired between 1962 and 1974, and had an association lasting 60 years.
Both feature in the graphic novel, Hancock: The Lad Himself by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page, coping admirably with Hancock’s eccentricities.
Told he has only six weeks to live, 18-year-old Ray begins painful treatment to limit the spread of the infection. By chance he meets Alan – the same age – who has just been given last rites following a severe haemorrhage. Striking up a friendship, they discover shared interests – football, girls, watching comedy films and listening to the hospital radio.
Set against the banal routine of sanitorium imprisonment, the play’s production and sound design recreate the intense loneliness, horror and abandonment experienced by both young men in the prime of their youth, alongside the camaraderie, period music and the lasting friendship between Alan and Ray, forged in such a challenging environment.
They’re surrounded by a range of characters trapped in this regimen – fellow patients, compassionate nurses and an unempathetic head doctor who enforces the rules for all patients.
Alan and Ray start writing comedy sketches which they aim to perform on the sanatorium hospital radio. But first they have to get past the notorious radio committee – headed, of course, by the Chief Physician and the presenter of the dismal hospital radio service, Alastair ‘Mac’ McGuire.
• Tony Hancock – The Lad Himself by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page is available here direct from the publisher, AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) or your preferred bookseller (Affiliate Link)
• Read the first chapter of The Lad Himself here on downthetubes
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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