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The workers at W.C. Boggs and Son are striking again and a meeting is arranged with the general secretary of the employees’ union to try and resolve the dispute.

EXT. THE WORKS – DAY

The wheels are at a standstill, the chimney’s dead, and there is no sign of life whatsoever.

EXT. THE WORKS YARD – DAY

A chauffeur-driven car purrs in. It comes to a stop in front of the works entrance. Vic, dressed fairly smartly and carrying papers, gets out and bows and scrapes to a large, stout, well-dressed, well-read, prosperous-looking gentleman getting out of the car. This is Mr Allcock, the general secretary of the union, who looks very sunburnt.

INT. BOGGS’ OFFICE – DAY

The Board Table has been set with paper and pencils, glasses and water jug for a meeting.

Boggs, Lewis and Sid are standing waiting tensely as the door opens and Withering looks in and whispers excitedly.

WITHERING: They’re here, Mr Boggs.

BOGGS: Show them in, please, Miss Withering.

(WITHERING disappears again and LEWIS turns to BOGGS.)

LEWIS: Now remember, Dad, be tough with them. We can’t afford to lose this contract.

BOGGS: Yes, yes, I know, Lewis.

(The door opens again and WITHERING ushers in ALLCOCK and VIC.)

VIC: Mr Boggs – this is our union general secretary, Mr All-cock.

BOGGS: How do you do, Mr Allcock. My son Lewis and Mr Plummer, our works foreman.

ALLCOCK: Pleased to meet you, gents. And sorry if I’m a bit late, but I had another stoppage this morning.

BOGGS: I’m sorry to hear that. You want to try Epsom salts. Marvellous stuff.

(ALLCOCK gives him a strange look.)

ALLCOCK: Work stoppage, I mean.

BOGGS: Oh, I beg your pardon.

ALLCOCK: Yes. Well, shall we get straight down to it then?

LEWIS: Good idea. We’ve already lost four days’ production over this.

ALLCOCK: Now, don’t let’s get off on the wrong foot, young feller. I’ve got a lot on my plate and I had to interrupt what little holiday I get to come ’ere today.

(As they sit …)

LEWIS: I’m sorry.

ALLCOCK: Not that I’m all that worried. Majorca’s a bit boring after the first three weeks or so.

(Confidentially to BOGGS.)

ALLCOCK: I got a deal going on for some building development there, you know.

BOGGS: How nice.

ALLCOCK: Yes. Do you fancy a piece?

BOGGS: (Shocked) I beg your pardon?

ALLCOCK: A plot of land!

BOGGS: Oh. No, I don’t think so, thank you. If we could just get down to business.

ALLCOCK: Yes, all right.

(He takes the open file from VIC and puts it in front of him.)

ALLCOCK: Well, I’ve had the basic facts from Spanner ’ere, and you know what your main trouble is, don’t you?

SID: Yeah. It’s the same old one about who does what job.

ALLCOCK: Ah yes, but the real basic trouble ’ere is – it’s an unofficial strike.

LEWIS: What does that mean, then?

ALLCOCK: It means my ’ands are tied. I can’t do a damn thing. Because it hasn’t got union approval, see?

BOGGS: Well, I’m delighted to hear that, Mr Allcock.

ALLCOCK: So your first step towards getting a settlement is to make it official!

BOGGS: Yes, but … how exactly can we make it an official strike if it hasn’t got union approval?

ALLCOCK: (Chuckles indulgently.) No, no, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr Boggs, you’ve got it arse about face.

(BOGGS reacts coldly to this bit of crudity.)

BOGGS: If you’d care to translate that, Mr Allcock, I don’t understand these technical expressions.

ALLCOCK: What I mean is, the strike hasn’t got our approval simply because it is unofficial.

Make it official and we’ll damn soon approve it, don’t you worry!

LEWIS: All right then, just tell us how we go about making it official?

ALLCOCK: Very simple. We submit all the facts of the dispute to the Union Judiciary Committee. They’ll study them and pass on their recommendations to the Industrial Relations Committee. (Pause.) In due course of course.

LEWIS: How do you mean, in due course?

ALLCOCK: Well, the Union Judiciary Committee are over at a conference in Rio – and you know what that means, eh?

(He chuckles dirtily, nudges old BOGGS, and makes an expressive zig-zag gesture with his hand.)

BOGGS: Quite. Then how soon could we expect action to make it official?

ALLCOCK: Just as soon as the Industrial Relations Committee can study the recommendations and pass their findings on to the Direct Action Committee.

SID: Blimey, you seem to have more committees than the society for unmarried mothers!

ALLCOCK: Well, the Executive have got to have something to do, haven’t they?

LEWIS: (Getting angry.) All right, then what happens after all that, Mr Allcock?

ALLCOCK: I can tell you that all right. It’ll all be chucked right in my lap and I’ll have to hop on another plane back from Majorca, dammit.

BOGGS: Well, pending settlement, Mr Allcock, couldn’t you, as general secretary, recommend a full return to work?

ALLCOCK: Me? Listen, mate, if I was ever to make any clear-cut decision I’d be out on my ruddy arse!

SID: In other words, we can’t win.

BOGGS: Well, there wouldn’t be much point having unions if you could, would there?

(And he laughs jovially.)

BOGGS: This is madness, madness!

BOGGS: (Packing up.) You don’t ’ave to worry, Mr Boggs. Let matters take the normal procedure and I can promise you a quick settlement. With the usual bit of give and take from both sides, of course.

BOGGS: Yes … we give and you take!

ALLCOCK: (Getting up.) Ha ha, that’s very good, I like that. We give and you take. I’m glad you can see the funny side of all this, Mr Boggs. Well, I must be getting along now. Goodbye all, and I must say this meeting has been most useful. Most useful.

BOGGS: Goodbye, Mr Allcock.

(As ALLCOCK and VIC go out.)

SID: Well, all I can say is, whoever named him knew what he was doing!

CARRY ON AGAIN DOCTOR

Alternative titles … Where There’s A Pill There’s A Way, The Bowels Are Ringing, If You Say It’s Your Thermometer I’ll Have To Believe You, But It’s A Funny Place To Put It

A Peter Rogers production

Distributed through Rank Organisation Released as an A certificate in 1969 in colour

Running time: 89 mins

CAST

Sidney James	Gladstone Screwer
Jim Dale	Dr James Nookey
Kenneth Williams	Dr Frederick Carver
Charles Hawtrey	Dr Ernest Stoppidge
Joan Sims	Mrs Ellen Moore
Barbara Windsor	Goldie Locks
Hattie Jacques	Matron
Patsy Rowlands	Miss Fosdick
Peter Butterworth	Shuffling Patient
Wilfrid Brambell	Mr Pullen
Elizabeth Knight	Nurse Willing
Peter Gilmore	Henry
Alexandra Dane	Stout Woman
Pat Coombs	New Matron
William Mervyn	Lord Paragon
Patricia Hayes	Mrs Beasley
Lucy Griffiths	Old Lady in Headphones
Harry Locke	Porter
Gwendolyn Watts	Night Sister
Valerie Leon	Deirdre
Frank Singuineau	Porter
Valerie Van Ost	Out-Patients Sister
Simon Cain	X-Ray Man
Elspeth March	Hospital Board Member
Valerie Shute	Nurse
Shakira Baksh	Scrubba
Ann Lancaster	Miss Armitage
Georgina Simpson	Men’s Ward Nurse
Eric Rogers	Bandleader
Donald Bisset	Patient
Bob Todd	Pump Patient
Heather Emmanuel	Plump Native Girl
Yutte Stensgaard	Trolley Nurse
George Roderick	Waiter
Jenny Counsell	Night Nurse
Rupert Evans	Stunt Orderly
Billy Cornelius	Patient in Plaster
Hugh Futcher	Cab Driver
Faith Kent	Berkeley Nursing Home Matron

PRODUCTION TEAM

Screenplay by Talbot Rothwell

Music composed and conducted by Eric Rogers

Production Manager: Jack Swinburne

Art Director: John Blezard

Editor: Alfred Roome

Director of Photography: Ernest Steward BSC

Camera Operator: James Bawden

Assistant Editor: Jack Gardner

Continuity: Susanna Merry

Make-up: Geoffrey Rodway

Assistant Director: Ivor Powell

Sound Recordists: Bill Daniels and Ken Barker

Hairdresser: Stella Rivers

Costume Designer: Anna Duse

Dubbing Editor: Colin Miller

Producer: Peter Rogers

Director: Gerald Thomas

Applying the final touches to Ernest Stoppidge (Charles Hawtrey)

Down to the bare facts for Barbara Windsor

At the Long Hampton Hospital, Dr Nookey seems to attract trouble, beginning with an incident in the women’s washroom, which he’d mistakenly entered, frightening the highly-strung Miss Armitage out of her senses. Nookey’s carefree manner isn’t to everyone’s liking at the hospital, with Dr Stoppidge wanting Nookey sacked for the washroom incident; there isn’t any love lost between Nookey and Dr Carver either, but Carver ignores Stoppidge’s request for Nookey’s sacking.

Carver, meanwhile, has his sights set on his own private clinic where he can treat affluent private patients, like Ellen Moore, a lonely widow who’s longing for a little romance in her life again; in Carver she sees a man who might provide that, but all he’s interested in is finding a way not to her heart, but her purse; he wants her to turn his dream into reality by financing the Frederick Carver Foundation and tries to woo her, courtesy of a few chat-up lines borrowed from Dr Nookey, at the hospital’s grand buffet and dance. His plans fail dismally.

When she asks Carver to find a replacement for the doctor’s post in a medical mission she established on the far-off Beatific Islands, he thinks it’s impossible to find someone daft enough to work in such an outpost, but then his mind focuses on Dr Nookey. When the young doctor, who has his drinks spiked by Dr Stoppidge, causes more mayhem at the hospital, he faces the hospital’s disciplinary committee. Spotting an opportunity to fill Mrs Moore’s vacancy at her mission, Dr Carver appeases the committee’s concerns over Nookey by offering him a last chance to save his career. Within hours he’s flying off to the Beatific Islands, tiny specks of land battered by rain and hurricanes; he soon realises his life is in the doldrums, that is until he discovers something which will make his fortune in England. Courtesy of an unsuspecting Gladstone Screwer, a serum causing drastic weight loss within days makes Nookey a millionaire when he finally returns to home shores and forms his own private clinic in partnership with none other than Ellen Moore.

Carver, meanwhile, who’d travelled to the islands to check on Dr Nookey, is lucky to escape with his life when the schooner he was travelling in, the Bella Vista, founders off the coast in a terrible storm. He faces more bad luck when he eventually returns home to find his dreams of a private clinic shattered by Nookey. Desperate to find out the constituent parts of the magic weight-losing serum, he hatches a plan to send his colleague, Dr Stoppidge, into the clinic disguised as a woman, but his scheme backfires. Dr Nookey’s good luck is challenged, too, when Gladstone Screwer, realising Nookey is on to a winner exchanging the serum for 200 cigarettes, turns up for a slice of the profits.

A quick chat before the cameras roll

ALLCOCK, SARAH

Played by Joan Sims

Miss Allcock teaches PE at Maudlin Street Secondary Modern School. Seen in Teacher, this judo expert isn’t to be messed around, as Alistair Grigg, the child psychiatrist, discovers. Before the end of term, though, she ends up falling for Grigg.

ALLEN, ANDREA

Role: Minnie in Cowboy

Born in Glasgow in 1946, Andrea Allen made sporadic appearances on the screen during the late 1960s and ’70s, including brief roles in films such as The Wrong Box, For Men Only, She’ll Follow You Anywhere, Invasion: UFO, Vampira and Spanish Fly. On television, she was seen in, among others, Jason King.

Allen, who’s no longer in the profession, lives abroad.

ALLEN, PATRICK

Narrator on Don’t Lose Your Head, Doctor and Up The Khyber

Actor Patrick Allen, born in Malawi in 1927, has one of the most recognisable voices in the business, thanks to years spent narrating films, adverts and documentaries.

After moving to Britain as a child, Allen, who’s also a busy stage actor, was evacuated to Canada during World War Two, and after studying at Montreal’s McGill University worked as a local radio presenter and, subsequently, appeared on television. In 1947 he returned to the UK and was cast in The Survivors, a series of plays for the BBC.

His first film credit, Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, was the start of a busy big-screen career, which includes The Long Haul, Dunkirk, I Was Monty’s Double, Night of the Big Heat, Diamonds on Wheels, The Wild Geese, Who Dares Wins and, more recently, RPM. On television he’s appeared in numerous shows, including The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Bergerac, The Protectors, The Troubleshooters and The Champions, but his biggest role was playing Richard Crane in the 1960s series, Crane.

ALLISON, BART

Roles: Grandad in Doctor and Grandpa Grubb in Loving

Bart Allison, born in Birmingham in 1892, always wanted to act and spent his early career working in variety and the theatre. He also made occasional screen appearances from the late 1940s, with film credits including The End of the Affair; Smashing Time; Steptoe and Son; No Sex Please, We’re British and The Ritz.

His television work, meanwhile, included appearances in shows such as Dixon of Dock Green, Hadleigh, Angels and The Sweeney.

He died in 1978, aged eighty-six.

AMAZON GUARDS

Played by Audrey Wilson, Vicky Smith, Jane Lumb, Marian Collins, Sally Douglas, Christine Rodgers and Maya Koumani

Clad in black cat-suits, the guards work in S.T.E.N.C.H.’s headquarters and are seen charging around in Spying.

AMBULANCE DRIVER

Played by Brian Osborne

The Ambulance Driver is seen in Matron outside the Finisham Maternity Hospital. An emergency call has been received to go and pick up Jane Darling, a film actress, who’s likely to give birth any minute. A shortage of staff to hand finds Dr Prodd and Nurse Carter – who’s actually Cyril Carter – roped in to help with the job.

AMBULANCE DRIVERS (1st and 2nd)

Played by Anthony Sagar and Fred Griffiths

The ambulance drivers who ferry appendicitis-stricken journalist Ted York to the Haven Hospital in Nurse. As it transpires, their mad dash to the hospital is motivated more by wanting to catch the horse racing than delivering a sick man.

ANAESTHETIST

Played by John Horsley

When Ted York is wheeled in on a trolley ready for his operation in Nurse, the anaethetist is waiting with an enormous hypodermic. (Note: although Horsley’s name appeared in the credits, the scene was cut.)