What exciting lives TV writers live – going to parties and being punched to the floor by other TV writers. Unfortunately in this case it didn’t happen, though Paul Merton has been misled into thinking it did (Interview, G2, 20 September).
The less dramatic truth is that I met Ray Galton at a party and he told me he hated the portrayal of himself and co-writer Alan Simpson in my BBC film Hancock. Which upset and astonished me as I’d always been a huge fan of their work and when I interviewed them had felt distinctly in awe. But according to Merton, Galton said they were shown as “smirking ‘like the Kray twins’ in the back row at Hancock’s ill-fated 1966 stage comeback”. Not true either I’m afraid. They weren’t smirking – either in the script or the film – but were reacting to Hancock’s panicked reversion to the old material that he’d sworn he’d ditch for the new show. And there was no punch-up at the party either. But next time I go to a writers’ party I might do a bit of training first, just in case.
William Humble
London
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