Editing Tony Hancock (section)

==Break with Galton and Simpson==
Hancock starred in the film ''[[The Rebel (1961 film)|The Rebel]]'' (1961), in which he plays the role of an office worker-turned-artist who finds himself successful after a move to [[Paris]], but only as the result of mistaken identity. Although a success in Britain, the film was not well received in the United States: owing to a contemporary American [[the Rebel (American TV series)|television series of the same name]], the film was retitled ''Call Me Genius'' and was not well received by American critics.{{cn|date=May 2024}}

According to his agent at the time, [[Beryl Vertue]] his break with Galton and Simpson took place at a meeting held in October 1961, where he also broke with her. Alan Simpson remembered that the break occurred during a telephone call and that only Beryl's position was discussed at the meeting. During the previous six months, the writers had developed – without payment and in consultation with the comedian – three scripts for Hancock's second starring film vehicle. Worried that the projects were wrong for him, the first two had been abandoned incomplete; the third was written to completion at the writers' insistence, only for Hancock to reject it. It is believed that he had not read any of the screenplays. The result of the break was that he chose to separately develop something previously discussed, and the writers were ultimately commissioned to write a ''Comedy Playhouse'' series for the BBC, one of which, "The Offer", emerged as the pilot for ''[[Steptoe and Son]]''. That "something previously discussed" became ''The Punch and Judy Man'', for which Hancock hired writer [[Philip Oakes]], who moved in with the comedian to co-write the screenplay.<ref name="H&N" />

In ''[[The Punch and Judy Man]]'' (1963), Hancock plays a struggling seaside entertainer who dreams of a better life; [[Sylvia Syms]] plays his nagging social climber of a wife, and [[John Le Mesurier]] a sand sculptor. The extent to which the character played by Hancock had merged with his real personality is clear in the film, which owes much to his memories of his childhood in Bournemouth.<ref name="H&N" />