Kenneth Williams was a great British one-off -
actor, comedian, diarist, Carry On star,
and surely one of the most mesmerising raconteurs
to ever grace our screens.
He was also one of the best loved,
delighting audiences on radio, television and cinema
for over 40 years.
Here he is in one of his earliest TV appearances,
displaying his mastery of voices on the Tonight Programme in 1961.
Listen to this voice.
FLIRTATIOUSLY: No, don't be like that.
Oh, stop messing about!
And this one.
DODDERY: 35 years I've been coming here.
35 years, I've been coming to these studios.
You may recognise them from the two radio shows,
Hancock's Half Hour and Beyond Our Ken.
And they are just two of the many voices that belong to one man.
The man is Kenneth Williams,
and tonight he opens in a new revue, One Over The Eight,
at the Duke of York's Theatre in London.
And judging by the enormous number of voices and characters
that you play,
you seem to collect voices like other people collect stamps.
Do you, in fact, borrow them from people that you've met?
Or do you just pluck them from the air?
Oh, yes. They are taken
from people I've known, you know.
Pinched, I suppose.
The snide voice,
that stop messing about one,
I met this boy,
who was working the Mint.
And he was describing how you were searched when you left Mint,
in case, well, if they suspected that you were taking out anything
that you shouldn't be.
And in describing it, he had a perpetual smile on his face
and said, you know, "Oh, you have to be very, very careful,
'cause otherwise, you see, they make you take your clothes off."
And so I thought there was a very good idea there.
What about the other one? The old 35 years?
Well, that was a producer, actually, that directed me in a play,
and he was giving a lecture to the cast on...
on the interpretation of the play.
And he salivated, a lot of saliva and bits, you see.
And he was telling them off
about something that was going wrong in the play.
DODDERY: And he was talking, you see, very much like that, you see.
All the time.
And the cigarette, the glue, was all coming undone, you see,
and it all fell over him, you see.
Indeed, I was impersonating this when he came in and saw me doing it,
but I fantastically did a little more than him...
DODDERY: Made it a bit more, you know, senile.
And arrived at a voice which is very good for radio,
you know, 'cause it's old and...
You've just, of course, been out on tour with this revue, haven't you?
Do you find that being out of London a great deal
provides you with good opportunity for collecting more voices?
Yes, you do meet some extraordinary people,
you know, that come backstage.
We have...
One of the sketches in this are based on the colour bar,
the idea of the colour bar, setting it up, satirising the idea.
And we met, on this tour, a woman from South Africa,
who had very different views on it, you see.
And she was telling us that if we lived there ourselves,
we'd all have different views on it too.
SOUTH AFRICAN ACCENT: And she talked, you see,
in this very South African way.
This very pinched... You know.
This way of talking. "If you knew. If only you knew.
"If only you could be out there yourself
"and see how we have to cope with this problem," you see.
That voice, I got from her.
Hmm.
What about these long tours, particularly away from London,
do you find that revue audiences, for instance, vary, differ very much
from audiences for straight plays?
Undoubtedly, yes. In what sort of ways?
Well, I mean, I think a straight play on tour has
a certain universality of appeal,
whereas revue is, so often, only for, designed for, the cosmopolitan,
and consequently you get some extraordinary things said to you
in the provinces.
One man accosted me outside the theatre and said, uh...
"Do you have a revue school?"
Quite fantastic.
And somebody else said to me, uh...
"Ee, well, it were all right. Yes. It were all right, the show,
"but there were no plot."
You see. Yes.
So goodness knows what she thought she'd been watching.
Also, somebody else tackled me and said,
"You don't mind me saying this,
"because, you know, you never want to resent criticism from the public.
"You never..." I said, "No, indeed.
"We welcome it, you know, with open arms."
"Yes," he said, "Well, you want to remember.
"You want to remember that your diction impedes characterisation.
"You see, now, you want to watch that.
"Your diction is impeded by your character..."
I said, "Indeed. Yes, well, you're quite right."
You know, and flew into the night with this terrible cry after me,
"Diction impedes characterisation."
I didn't really know what it meant at all.
Williams was a natural storyteller.
And when he had a tale to tell, he threw himself into it.
Everything became a performance,
and with the voice, gestures and facial expressions
going into overdrive, it was something to behold.
Here's one such occasion.
Appearing on the Parkinson programme alongside Windsor Davies
of the Army entertainment comedy It Ain't Half Hot, Mum.
You know the reality of the army entertainment unit
because, in fact, you were with one?
What's the difference between the reality and the fiction?
Well, I suppose, you know, the fictional one shares with us
the problem, a fundamental paradox,
which was that in the Army you were supposed to be soldiers,
and yet, of course, at night we were supposed to put make-up on
and come on in various costumes and all the rest of it.
And in our unit, which was Singapore,
the commanding officer was at great pains to say,
"Though you're artists, I accept that you're artists,
"either a pianist or instrumentalist or whatever,
"and some of you are doing the sketches as women,
"dressed up as women.
"Nevertheless you will go around this parade ground in Nee Soon
"like soldiers.
"I will have men on this parade,
"you're all smart, now get your hair cut and look like men.
"I want a unit full of men."
And from the back row you heard, "Oh, get the Madame!"
LAUGHTER
And this man, Woodings, was furious.
"None of that. I heard that.
"I'm not having any of that. I was Ivor Novello's stage director,
"so I know all about the pro-talk.
"I don't want any of that. You will behave like soldiers."
And, of course, that was the problem,
because fundamentally they weren't military people, you understand,
and they did tend to flounce about
and walk not in a manner that was, you know, military.
No. And that all...was a problem.
And that was the reason why there was a terrible shake-up in the unit.
And he said, "I'm going to get someone here
"to shake some discipline to this unit.
"And it's a man from the DLIs. The DLI."
And filled us with apprehension, we thought,
"Oh, Durham Light Infantry," because they did march, didn't they?
Yeah. They really marched.
And he'd got this man in, you see.
This man was a Sergeant Major, formidable.
I mean, just as he portrays, a formidable man.
And we were all frightened to death, you see.
But luckily, I got on tour with a show so I missed it, really.
And I went to Hong Kong with a revue
and when I came back, I said to Stanley Baxter,
"What happened to all that discipline stuff
with that Sergeant Major?"
He said, "Yes, you might well ask.
"Hmm, well..."
Apparently he was caught with his fingers in the till.
They used to have the costumes done by Chinese tailors,
and apparently he was saying, "Well, put down 500
"and we split the difference," you see,
and keeping the lolly, you see.
And so there was an enquiry, and a court martial,
and rather than face this court martial,
he took prussic acid and so they... LAUGHTER
Yes! You see.
So they got him to the military hospital,
but he died before the arrival.
And so the OC, Major Williams,
lined them up on the parade ground and said, "Now, look here,
"Sergeant Major's killed himself.
"The man's more bloody trouble dead than he was alive...
LAUGHTER "...now we've got to bury him.
"So, all over 6-foot stand forward for pallbearing."
And everyone in the rank all, sort of, went down a bit...
LAUGHTER
...'cause no-one wanted to carry this coffin, you know,
which is quite understandable, really.
They were artists, you see.
And so he went down the line, LAUGHTER
and as he came to Stanley Baxter,
Stanley was shrinking visibly, you see,
and he said, "All right, you can go, you can be a pallbearer."
And Baxter said, "Oh, Church of Scotland."
LAUGHTER
And the old man said, "Oh, I see. Well, sorry.
"Yes, of course, I understand."
And went on down the line and then the penny dropped
and he turned back and said, "Just a minute!
"What are you talking about? You bury people, don't you?
"Come on, out."
He was caught.
And they caught about half a dozen others, you see.
And they had to go with this coffin on their shoulders,
and of course, it was that particular period
when the monsoon simply fell down and it was pouring.
And they got to the cemetery or whatever it was, military place,
you see, and there was a padre with his cassock flapping,
the rain just simply pouring down, you see,
and he was standing there with all this...
"Man is born of woman and his life is brief and full of misery.
"We come with..." MUMBLES RAPIDLY
And then he saw this flag,
'cause they put a Union Jack on the coffin.
He said, "Get the flag off!
"Get that flag off!
"It's an ignominious death,
"you don't give battle honours with ignominious,"
because if you kill yourself, it's ignominious, you see.
So they said, "Oh, dear." And they all took it...
LAUGHTER
Tried to get down and get the flag off, you see.
They were all standing there, very limp, you know.
"Oh, well, I don't know."
And then there was supposed to be
someone saying, "Right fire, right turn,
"left fire," you see, to march off,
but there was no-one to say right fire, left turn,
because he was in this box, you see. LAUGHTER
And the whole thing fell about in the most appalling confusion.
This terrible confusion with this vicar saying, "Just go, just go!"
And Woodings, our commanding officer, was standing there,
"Wonderfully moving, very moving. Very moving," you see.
He's standing there saluting, and the Packard arrived -
an enormous Packard
with a Chinese chauffeur holding an umbrella - and a lady got out,
and stood by the graveside with all of us.
We're all looking and thinking, "What's she doing?" You know.
HE SOBS AMERICAN ACCENT: "Is he there?
"Is he in that box? Oh, my God, it's so terrible."
And Woodings said, "Oh, Madame, who are you?"
And she said, "I'm married to him. I was mar... I'm his wife."
And he'd secretly married in Singapore,
and she was deposited in this hotel in Singapore.
And Woodings said, "Well, my dear, you must be very distressed."
She said, "I am very distressed.
"I had no idea this was going to happen."
He said, "Well, I see, you dismiss your chauffeur,
"and come with me in my jeep and I will look after you.
"Don't you worry about a thing."
And she was ensconced in his room, you see.
And I had to go in to get orders, you know,
for where you were supposed to go.
And she was sitting there in the kimono with a coffee.
And I thought, "Well, it didn't take her long to get over it, did it?"
LAUGHTER
Unbelievable.
I think that's the longest reply to any question I've ever asked.
LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE
But vastly entertaining.
Of course, talking at length was second nature to Kenneth,
especially on the BBC radio programme Just A Minute.
He managed to speak for 60 seconds
without hesitation, deviation or repetition more times
than any other contestant.
And here's one of his triumphs.
Kenneth, we're back with you.
Would you take the subject of emperors,
and tell us something about that in just a minute? Starting now.
Many names spring to mind,
I would mention Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius.
Perhaps Elagabalus is an interesting example.
He arrived in Rome, you know, on a dray
and had a lot of make-up on.
The senators are reputed to have made representations,
and indignant noises about this.
But he held full sway
and filled every post far and wide -
Gaul, Britain, Menorca, Majorca,
all with posts with his favourite in charge.
And I don't blame him, 'cause, I mean, after all,
if you've got a bit of authority, you might as well splash it about
and say, "Woo!" And have a good time.
Only here for a short while,
might as well enjoy it while we can.
And I think, when I look back on my own life,
ah, yes, Acton's dictum - "All power corrupts."
That is true. WHISTLE BLOWS
APPLAUSE
Unsurprisingly, over the years television hosts and audiences
would increasingly come to think of Kenneth as chat show gold.
He could be indiscreet, he could be shocking,
but he was always hugely entertaining.
Here are just the few more examples of him in full flow,
doing what he did best.
And a woman said, "Oh, it's you.
"Oh, yeah, just, oh, I think you're marvellous.
"I admire you. I really admire..."
I said, "Thank you very much. I must run."
"Oh, wait a minute, give me your autograph,
"just give me your autograph." And it was raining.
And I said, "If I do it right now, it will all run.
"The ink will run. I'll be illegible.
"I'll be illegible."
She said, "No, you're eligible to me, you're eligible."
So I said, "No, go away."
And she said, "Oh, you dirty rotten snob!"
You understudied Richard Burton, didn't you?
Oh, that was frightening.
Absolutely frightening. I was his understudy in The Seagull.
Richard Burton was playing Konstantin.
I came to the theatre one day, and the stage door people said,
"Get up there, get his clothes on, get his clothes on. He's off."
I said, "What are you talking about, off?"
"He's an enormous bloke.
"He can't be off, there's nothing wrong with him."
And they said, "Yes, he's had... He's eaten ptomaine.
"Ptomaine poisoning."
He'd eaten tinned fish which is infected.
So I shot up there.
I was petrified.
And he was lying there, and he was ashen.
And I said, "You're not really ill, are you?
"Stop messing about, you know...
"It's all a game." And he said, "I'm ill. I'm very ill.
"I've eaten this stuff out of a tin, and I'm sure I've got
"ptomaine poisoning, they've sent for the doctor."
I said, "But I can't go on, I don't know it!"
I'd never learned it!
I'd never learned it, you see.
And it's a vast role.
Enormous part.
And he said, "You're joking?
"You really... Are you serious?
"You don't...know...the role that you're understudying?"
I said, "No, I never learned it. You looked so fit."
He played rugby and everything, you know?
And I said, "I can't go on."
And he said, "Well, I'll tell you what we'll do.
"You go next door."
And you weren't allowed... It was a Welsh theatre,
we weren't allowed to have drink.
He said, "You go next door and smuggle in bitter,
"get their draft special bitter,
"and that might do the trick."
And I was going backwards and forwards, you see,
from the stage door.
With all this stuff under my raincoat, bringing it in,
and he went on, and he drank all this stuff, and he went on.
And there were terrible burps.
Bleurgh! LAUGHTER
The whole thing went like a bomb.
And he came off, got a tremendous ovation,
I mean a really marvellous exiting round of applause.
And he came into the wings,
where I was standing with another load of this bitter, you see.
And he put his arms round me, and he shouted...
He used to do this trick, Richard, you know.
He had favourite songs, and instead of singing them,
he'd recite them.
You know, "Foggy day in London town, had me up, had me down."
All this sort of thing.
And he suddenly flung his arms around me and said,
"If you're ever in a jam,
"I'M YOUR MAN!"
And I was loving it. I was laughing, you see.
And the stage manager said, "Shut up! Keep your voice down.
"Your voice can be heard."
'Cause this play was still going on, you see.
And that was the sort of thing we used to get up to.
But I did like him. I liked him enormously.
He was great fun, tremendous humour.
When the Carry Ons were in their infancy,
the Americans were going to do Carry Ons.
And I was interviewed by a famous director they sent over to London
to recruit talent for these Carry Ons.
And this man was Hal Roach,
who had directed the famous twosome, Laurel and Hardy.
Laurel and Hardy, that's right. Laurel and Hardy, yeah.
And he had got a marvellous idea, as he said, for slapstick.
And I was interviewed by him in his flat in London, and he said to me...
AMERICAN ACCENT: ..."I've got a wonderful idea!
"Now, what do we have here? See this little script,
"I've got a little script with you sitting on this lavatory pan
"and it's just been painted. It's freshly painted.
"And we have a long shot where you jump up
'cause there's an explosion, and then a long shot of you
"with a lavatory seat STUCK TO YOUR BEHIND!"
And I said, "Oh, yes(?)"
And it went on like this, with these slapstick situations
about a lavatory seat stuck to your behind.
No wonder you didn't work abroad, if that's the best offer you had.
That was the best one, yes.
The talk of lavatory seats is appropriate,
because Kenneth revelled in toilet humour.
He was neurotic when it came to personal hygiene,
but knew that discussing private parts and bodily functions
could have audiences in stitches.
And so he would regularly trot such stories out.
The first in the selection involves a dressing room encounter
with the legendary Noel Coward.
I was sitting on this chamber pot.
Because I had this warm water
with which I was cleaning myself, you see.
And he looked at me and he...
Very polite, most of them sit on the wash basin.
Yeah, well, I... LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH
No, I was washing something. Oh.
And I shot up, and in shooting up when I saw him, I upset the po,
and the water went all over the place.
And he said, "What on earth are you doing?"
And I said, "Well, I was washing myself,
"because I was told by the surgeon after my operation
"that I should never use toilet paper ever,
"but always wash it, completely wash it, you see."
And he said, "Oh, my dear, I do understand,
"have you read my book Present Indicative?
"I discuss that very operation myself.
"It's a dreadful operation, piles."
And I said, "No, no, no.
"I didn't have that. I didn't have that."
I said, "No, my operation was for popili."
"I had popili, you see."
And he said, "Popili?
"My dear, it's an island in the South Seas."
And as a matter of fact, it is.
I'd got it all wrong.
Because I had the operation, you see.
And well, I had three, actually.
Three, and they are all...
Painful?
...terrible.
Well, yes, when you're operated on in the nether regions.
And they...
And they shave you.
They shave everything.
Dreadful. And you feel, afterwards, you know,
as though a porcupine's down there.
Quite ghastly. I can't tell you the agony you go through.
You are reduced in hospitals,
the ignominy reduces you to a lump of meat on a trolley,
and you're shoved in, you know...
Given the injection... Aargh!
And you go out for the count, you see.
Bed pans. That's right.
Although you hear some marvellous things, 'cause a nurse said to me,
"Down in the geriatric ward," she said, "there's an old girl,
"and she pees the bed regularly, you know."
I said, "Does she, Sister Xavier? Are you kidding?"
She said, "I'm not kidding. It's the truth."
She said, "Now, do you know, she doesn't recognise it.
"And when I say to her, 'What have you been doing in this bed?'
"she says, 'Oh, it's the roof leaking.
"'It is the roof.'"
And that refusal to acknowledge the humility,
the ignominy, I mean, of it, is marvellous, isn't it, really?
I was put in this hotel.
Do you remember that hotel?
And I sat on this loo, and the seat,
the seat came forward and cut my spine.
And I went to the manager, and I said,
"This is dreadful, this hotel. I sat on the loo,
"the seat fell forward on my spine and actually cut it."
And he said, "You're supposed to sit on the seat."
I said, "On the contrary. I've never sat on lavatory seats.
"I mean, unless it's my own. I wouldn't sit on anybody else's.
"Because of germs. You know, I'm a blood donor.
"I can't catch anything." All right.
"Hence I ALWAYS...
"I always sit on the porcelain, you see."
And he said,
"Well, I'm surprised you're the only one that's ever complained.
"We've had no complaints."
He said, "In fact, you are occupying a suite."
And I said, "Your suite's left me feeling rather sour."
I've got that in the book. Of course you have.
Why do you keep a diary?
I started because I wanted a record of rehearsal periods,
how much they owed me, how much I'd actually done, you know.
The work I'd actually done. And then Stanley Baxter said to me,
"Well, don't just put down what you've worked. Put what people said.
"What the director said to you.
"It'll all be grist to the mill when you come to another play.
"And put down any amusing bits," you see.
"So working with Edith Evans,
"put down something that she's said to you."
What she as grand as she seemed to be, privately?
Edith? No, not at all, really.
'Cause she said to me once, I always remember,
she said, "They're always in your room, chatting.
"I can hear you halfway up the corridor."
And you could, of course. She always said I had a voice like a foghorn.
And she said, "Why don't they come to my room?"
And I said, "Because they view you as something of a myth, you see.
"You're a great figure, and they're a little awed."
And she said, "But I'm very ordinary.
"I sit at home with my white apron
"and a little stool by the oven, basting,
"my wooden spoon for basting, and I do a lovely Yorkshire pudding."
And I thought, "Oh, dear. Oh, dear. That's not ordinary to me."
Very ordinary. Now then, why didn't they have actors or actresses
of the stature of Edith Evans in the Carry On films?
Why did they have only ordinary people?
Mm, well, I mean, I think that's a bit much, you know.
There were some very fine actors. Cecil Parker,
Cecil Parker was in the Jack one.
He was the Admiral. There were some very fine people.
Dickie Wattis. Oh, yes, there were some very fine...
But there weren't any Lords, were there?
No sort of knights? No, no.
There was rather a funny account of that, actually.
Because Charlie Hawtrey was making his way to Pinewood Studios
to do a Carry On, very early in the morning.
And he was there, coming along the Pinewood Road
in a rather tatty old raincoat with two carrier bags.
He carried all his make-up,
his R White's lemonade, and his 50 Woodbines.
LAUGHTER
And he was struggling along the road,
and Laurence Olivier's car came by.
The window was lowered electrically, you see.
And he said, "Isn't it Charlie?"
And he said, "Oh, Sir Lawrence, yes, it is. It's Charlie."
He says, "Oh, get in. I'll give you a lift."
He said, "Oh, thank you."
And he told us all, you know, he was very impressed by it.
"I was given a lift by Laurence Olivier."
And Larry came over when we were in the restaurant and said, you know,
"Don't they give you any money on these films?
"Do you have to trudge along the road in the early morning
"to make a Carry On?
"Surely they can afford to buy, you know, some transport for you?"
And Joanie Sims said, "No, we're paid tuppence ha'penny,
"they won't give us no transport.
"We have to struggle along the road, Larry.
"Oh, you wouldn't believe the adversity we go through.
"We're even out there in that orchard,
"and they're spraying these dead trees green to pretend it's summer."
And Barbara Windsor said, "Yes, and I'm supposed to be in this PT thing
"and my tits are covered in goose pimples!"
She said, "It's not summer at all. It's the middle of winter."
And Larry said, "Well, I think it's a disgrace.
"I think they should treat you a lot better than that."
And when he left the table, I said, "Well, he'd never do a Carry On.
"He'd never work in conditions like this."
And Joanie Sims said, "Oh, I wondered why they'd never cast him!"
Williams always had a love-hate relationship
with the Carry On films, resenting the fact they didn't pay well,
but enjoying the strange level of international fame they brought.
The surprise for me was that the Carry On films
were successful in the States,
because I would have thought that they are so much
British, seaside picture postcard, McGill kind of humour,
wouldn't have got on in America.
I think they must be, you know,
living proof of the fact
that there is a sort of staple commodity in humour.
You know, there are three sort of basic jokes.
They say, the linguistic, semantic joke,
the joke which is situation,
and the joke which is relationship, mother-in-law, whatever it is.
A relationship joke.
And they say, always, you can trace most jokes to these three.
I think Carry Ons must, in some fashion or another,
have found a basic ingredient.
Because I remember, you know, in Morocco,
"You Carry On man, I know."
This sort of thing on the front.
And I got to Eastern Crete, Sitia.
We were going to the monastery,
and I was only going to see
these rather marvellous murals on the wall,
beautiful murals they were, and this man, a priest, said,
"Oh, I have seen, of course, the Carry On."
I thought, "What are you doing watching Carry Ons?
"I should have thought you'd be deep in theology."
Absolutely. Well, I presume...
...having made so many of the Carry On films,
you're now all immensely rich?
This extraordinary repertory team of Barbara Windsor,
Bernard Bresslaw, the late Sid James,
Charles Hawtrey, yourself.
You're all millionaires? Oh, no.
They got us all for tuppence ha'penny.
You've got to remember,
nobody was any kind of name when they were all starting.
I mean, you know, in celebrity status, yes, of course.
But they weren't names in terms of commanding vast salaries,
in the sense of Clint Eastwood and all these great names in cinema.
Great... What do you call it?
...international stars, those sort of names.
They can command vast salaries, but not us.
I remember the first one I did,
I got £800 quid out of the whole thing.
And I was on it for quite a few weeks, you know.
And there's a lot of periods
where you're sitting, availability waiting, you know.
They say, "We're not going to shoot on you this week,
"but you must be ready for appearing another week."
It's about three months of your time.
And it doesn't come out as being that...
Well, they're enormously enjoyable.
Kenneth Williams, thank you very much.
"Stop messing about" was one of Kenneth's most famous phrases.
But, of course, messing about was something he couldn't stop.
Especially when the cameras were on him.
Our final example of this is a musical number.
Here's Kenneth singing the nonsense song Crepe Suzette
working his audience like a master,
and once again working that incredible voice to full effect.
# Fiancee
# Ensemble
# Lorgnette
# Lingerie
# Eau de toilette
# A Gauloise cigarette
# Entourage
# Ma crepe suzette
# Citron
# Mirage
# Caravelle
# Hors d'oeuvre
# Brut
# Et Chanel
# Chaise longue
# Sacha Distel
# Fuselage
# Ma crepe suzette
# Pince-nez
# Bidet
# Commissionaire
# Mon repos
# Brigitte Bardot
♪ Jeux Sans Frontieres. ♪
It's a knockout, isn't it?
The French, I mean, not the song.
# Faux pas
# Grand Prix
# Espionage
# Brie et Camembert
# Fromage
# Mayonnaise
# All night garage
# RSVP
♪ Ma crepe suzette. ♪
APPLAUSE