Recording
While returning from recording The Bowmans a week earlier, Hancock was involved in a car accident, and rather than cancel the studio booking it was decided to place teleprompters around the set in order to save the comedian the problems of learning his lines after a delay in rehearsals. In the passage where he is alone looking at the posters, Hancock was obliged to learn his lines. While it is not true Hancock never learned a line from a script again, he increasingly relied on the device mostly thereafter in his TV career. Many Hancock devotees reckon this is one of his poorest TV performances, and it is indeed quite noticeable to see Hancock's eye movements towards the teleprompters when addressing the other performers. Others, though, see no real difference between this and other classic Hancock performances, and lines from the episode have become a part of British comic folklore ("A pint? That's very nearly an armful!" "Rhesus? They're monkeys aren't they?"), giving it now legendary status.
Read more about this topic: The Blood Donor
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“He shall not die, by G—, cried my uncle Toby.
MThe ACCUSING SPIRIT which flew up to heaven’s chancery with the oath, blush’d as he gave it in;—and the RECORDING ANGEL as he wrote it down, dropp’d a tear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)