Tom Sloan, 1919 – 1970, Part 2, Moving Up
In part one we took a brief look at the life of Tom Sloan the man who was responsible for the long running BBC Comedy playhouse.
We left the story in 1961 as Sloan was promoted to BBC Head of Light Entertainment.
A Job For Life?
Now in his early 40’s Tom Sloan was Head of Light Entertainment and alongside writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson was about to start a series of shows that nobody could have foreseen just how successful it would become.
On taking up his new post one of his first tasks was to attempt to hold on to one of the BBC’s biggest stars of the time, Tony Hancock. Failing to persuade Hancock to sign a golden handcuffs deal designed to prevent him defecting to ITV or the cinema, Sloan wrote a confidential memo to the BBC Controller of Programmes on 13 April 1962, stating “Hancock is a moody perfectionist with a great interest in money and no sense of loyalty to the corporation”. He added that nothing short of handing over entire “production control” to Hancock and paying him an unprecedented £150,000 – the equivalent of £2m today – for a further 13 episodes of his TV sitcom would be enough to persuade him to stay with the BBC.
Writers Galton and Simpson along with Tony Hancock had changed the way comedy was broadcast, being the first to introduce the first full 30 minute sitcom. In the autumn of 1961 Tom Sloan approached Galton and Simpson, with the idea of a series called Comedy Playhouse. He had ten half-hour slots and asked them to fill them with anything they wanted, insisting only that his title of Comedy Playhouse be used, and so in December 1961 The Galton and Simpson Comedy Playhouse began a run of 2 series.
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The fourth episode of the series, broadcast on 5th January 1962, was entitled The Offer and starred Harry H. Corbett and Wilfrid Brambell as Steptoe and Son. Sloan saw this as a potential series but despite badgering the writers they were having none of it. After Hancock’s Half Hour they were quite happy writing one off episodes.
Eventually Sloan won the argument and after repeating the pilot Steptoe and Son went on to become one of the BBC’s most successful sitcoms, running for eight series: four between 1962 and 1965 and a further four between 1970 and 1974 and June 1962. A further seven series, totalling 57 episodes, would eventually be made between 1962 and 1974.
In his post as Head of Light Entertainment, Sloan provided viewers with a tougher and socially more critical view of comedy than was available before.
The polite, middle-class humour which was the BBC’s previous vision of what television amusement should offer, was supplemented with the social realism of comedies such as Steptoe and Son and Till Death Us Do Part
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Sloan once said, “Comedy ought to reflect life. It is at its best when it does this. I’ve no intention of giving viewers a marzipan view of life”. It was later claimed that Sloan attempted to invert the BBC’s founding principles of “education, information and entertainment”, giving priority to entertainment, followed by information and education.
This was considered acceptable because entertainment, to him, meant not only what was cheerfully relaxing but also what was vigorous, thoughtful, stimulating and downright disturbing.
Tom Sloan found the writers and the stars to provide and embody what exactly what he wanted and created a space and audience for them.
Sloan held the post of Head of Light Entertainment for nine years (until his death in 1970). During this time he saw the BBC’s output of light entertainment programmes dramatically increase.