Kenneth Williams

30 things you didn't know about the Carry On films

Two decades after the last Carry On film was made, the uniquely British series of low-budget films continues to amuse viewers who weren't even born when Kenneth Williams's Caesar declared 'Infamy. Infamy'.

The Beeb's drama department has carved out a neat niche with its biopics of beloved British comedy stars: from Kenneth Williams and Tony Hancock to Frankie Howerd and Morecambe and Wise. This latest film, first shown on BBC Four in January, is a worthy addition. Gavin & Stacey's Ruth Jones stars in an acclaimed dramatisation of Carry On star Hattie Jacques's life. Though she played an austere matron on screen, Jacques's private life was actually rather racy. The story focuses on the early 1960s love triangle between Jacques, her chauffeur (Aidan Turner) and her husband, Dad's Army star John Le Mesurier (a heartbreaking turn from Cold Feet's Robert Bathurst) - whom she continued to love, even when she moved her toyboy into their bed. It's a bittersweet story, superbly acted, and followed by a repeat of Jacques's 1963 appearance on This Is Your Life.

Though overlong and episodic, this 2006 drama based on Kenneth Williams's diaries is worth sticking with for a tour de force from Michael Sheen as the tormented comedian. He has the trademark flaring nostrils and almost insane, leering campness beautifully nailed down, but his real skill lies in the delicate unpeeling of the many layers of Williams's complicated personality. There are flashbacks to his dreary childhood but Fantabulosa! homes in on Williams's glory years in Hancock's Half Hour and Carry On films. Thanks to his unsparing, posthumously published diaries, there's little private left of Williams's private life. We know, for instance, of Williams's fear of his own homosexuality, and Sheen portrays the comic's unsatisfactory encounters with great poignancy.

Will Hattie be the last to get the BBC biopic treatment

Nostalgic retellings of the lives of Tony Hancock, Kenneth Williams, and Eric & Ernie have been ratings winners, but fictionalised accounts can land the Beeb in hot water.

Kenneth Williams's diaries caused a sensation when they were edited and published after his death, apparently revealing that behind closed doors he was a brooding character at odds with his outrageous stage and screen persona. Fortunately, Christopher Stevens has since been granted access to the complete set of Williams's diaries and papers, forging the biography Born Brilliant from this fresh material. Whereas he remains a complex figure, the book's extracts should be enough to convince anyone that there was a lot more to the real Kenneth Williams than spite and misery.

Kenneth Williams profile and book review

A review of Born Brilliant, the book by Christopher Stevens about the life of Kenneth Williams.

When it comes to gay Carry On members, Kenneth Williams has tended to grab the interest. By contrast, the life of Charles Hawtrey is less well known. Wes Butters' documentary looks at the man behind the image of the puny fall guy, and how he came to die a recluse.

Kenneth carries on from beyond the grave

Selling your entire life on eBay is becoming quite the thing these days, but Kenneth Williams wasn't around when a great chunk of his went up for sale. The writer and broadcaster Wes Butters was surfing the internet one night when he washed up on the auction website - where, to his astonishment, a man called Robert Chidell was flogging a Williams treasure trove.

You never know what weird and wonderful stuff you can find on eBay. Late in 2005, Wes Butters came across papers put up for auction by the godson of Kenneth Williams. Among the memorabilia, Butters found a 1966 script, Twice Ken Is Plenty, written by Kenneth Horne and Mollie Millest, that had never been broadcast. But not for long. Actors Robin Sebastian and Jonathan Rigby revive the two Kens in front of an audience, who are clearly having fun, at the BBC Radio Theatre. The story pivots around the duo's attempts to infiltrate the inner recesses of Broadcasting House, meaning a great deal of doors get opened (cue those familiar sound effects), a welter of bad puns, Light Programme in-jokes and buckets of innuendo. Like all nostalgia, it can disappoint at times, but mostly, it is a joyous, glorious titterfest that will have you groaning in bad-pun heaven.

It is mysterious how today's Twice Ken Is Plenty, the Lost Script of Kenneth Williams, ever made it to air. It goes out this morning on Radio 4 and it is, indeed, a novelty. The script turned up among the effects of the late Kenneth Williams, was bought by writer and presenter Wes Butters, is performed by two of the actors who act the parts of Kenneth Horne and Kenneth Williams in a stage version of Round the Horne. It was written by Kenneth Horne and Mollie Millest and offered, all those years ago, to the head of comedy at the time, who turned it down. Being turned down is, sometimes, a sign of something being ahead of its time. Not here. I listened to the preview disc with feelings akin to those of watching a neighbour's totally talentless child in a school concert. But judge for yourself.