London honour on his 90th birthday

Tony Hancock has been honoured with a blue plaque outside his former London home on what would have been his 90th birthday.

English Heritage put the tribute outside 20 Queen's Gate Place, Kensington, where he and his wife Cicely Romanis had a flat from 1952 to 1958.

Hancock's Half Hour writers Alan Simpson and Ray Galton unveiled the plaque yesterday outside the listed 19th Century building, near the the Natural History Museum.

Simpson said: 'Tony Hancock was the comedian's comedian.

'When we were writing Hancock's Half Hour he told us, "You're the writers, you write, I'm the comedian, I'll comede." And boy, could he comede.'

Galton added: 'We are delighted that English Heritage is celebrating Tony with a plaque. It is a little ironic that a man who steadfastly refused throughout his career to use any blue material should be remembered with a blue plaque.'

English Heritage's blue plaque historian Howard Spencer said: 'This blue plaque recognises a colossus of comedy.

'In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Tony Hancock became one of Britain's first comedy superstars - a radio and television phenomenon - and his influence is still apparent today.'

20 Queen's Gate Place was the London address where Hancock lived the longest and his five years there coincided with the most successful and memorable period of his career. Hancock's Half Hour ran on BBC radio in 1954 and from 1956 transferred to TV.

Although the outside of the flat, now worth millions, is elegant – inside Hancock lived in near-squalor worthy of his fictional home at Railway Cuttings in East Cheam.

The late producer Dennis Main Wilson once recalled: 'There was an old leather club armchair with the stuffing coming out, a few other odd chairs and a put-you-up settee. There was an underfelt on the floor but no carpet. There was a mark where someone had been sick. There were piles of fan letters behind the lavatory pan.'

The top-floor flat was accessed only by stairs and Hancock regularly appeared at his door panting and out of breath. 'We knew who our friends were in those days,' he would joke.

Visitors to the flat included Sid James and Kenneth Williams, and it was here that Hancock, Galton and Simpson together mapped out the story for the 1961 film The Rebel.

Previous plaques to Hancock exist at his is outside his former home at 10 Grey Close, Hampstead Garden Suburb, erected by the Dead Comics' Society, and outside Teddington Studios.

Unofficial plaques are sited at 41 Southam Road in Hall Green, Birmingham, where Hancock was born, and at Durlston Court Hotel, 47 Gervis Road, Bournemouth – his first childhood home.

Published: 12 May 2014