The idea for doing it onstage — the Fringe performance will be a recreation of the radio recordings with performers standing at the microphone — came about because the BBC shows felt like a real event.
Pearson, 56, has been a regular visitor to the Fringe since 1982. “I first appeared in a Deborah Warner production of Woyzeck with Fiona Shaw,” he remembers. He has seen how Edinburgh has changed, with comedy latterly eclipsing drama. “I remember being bombarded by theatre. Then the Perrier Comedy Award became a beacon.”
The Missing Hancocks cannily straddles both camps. “We think we have something attractive to older theatre audiences with the title while the comedy audience will like the cast.” McNally has a young following thanks to Pirates of the Caribbean — he is currently filming the latest instalment — and Simon Greenall will be familiar to Alan Partridge fans as Geordie security man Michael.
There have been attempts to recreate Hancock before. Paul Merton took his part in a 1996 TV series but lacked the acting gravitas.
Actors Ken Stott and Alfred Molina have both played Hancock in biopics. By one of those coincidental quirks, Pearson had a long-term relationship with actress Frances Barber who played Hancock’s wife Freddie in the 1991 BBC film with Molina.
Pearson is a busy man. He has just been seen in Waterloo Road and films the BBC series In the Club this autumn. And as well as acting he has a growing sideline dealing in antiquarian books and original TV and radio manuscripts. If you have a spare £1,250 he is currently selling one of the last-ever Hancock scripts from his ill-fated Australian series.
It is rewarding for him artistically when these two sides of his life overlap. But recently they have crossed over in a more stressful way. Pearson should have been on BBC4 last month presenting a documentary about publisher Jack Kahane, whose Obelisk imprint produced the first edition of Henry Miller’s controversial novel Tropic of Cancer. The programme was dropped from the schedules because the BBC objected to an extract from the book that is liberally sprinkled with c and f words.
The irony of a documentary about literary censorship being censored is not lost on him. “Only when it was written, shot, edited and delivered did station editors pull it from the schedules.” There is currently what Pearson calls a “steward’s enquiry” over the programme.
As for The Missing Hancocks, the future is also fluid but in a good way, with talk of a London run and even mutterings of television. Everything depends on McNally’s availability.
Did Pearson ever consider taking on the role himself? “God, no,” he says, clearly drawing the line at playing the man he admires so much. “You can’t get anywhere near it without a towering central performance. Kevin is a great comic actor and believably Hancockian. Nobody could do it but Kevin.”
The Missing Hancocks is at the Assembly Rooms from August 5-29. For details of this and all other Edinburgh shows see edfringe.com.
