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Russell Davies. Kenneth Williams Unseen: The private notes, scripts and photographs
Kenneth Williams Unseen
Wes Butters & Russell Davies
Table of Contents
Cast of Characters
Introduction by Russell Davies
Diary, 13 April 1983
The DEATH of Kenneth Williams
Michael Whittaker
‘I asked him what they were for. “For exiting this life,” he said. “You mean they’re suicide pills?”’
‘…in a sense he was almost licensed to commit suicide because of the way his father had gone’
‘He ended his life not quite running down a hospital corridor but wheeled down one, pursued by demons’
‘When we arrived there was a choir and about a dozen people, close friends. It was a moving service’
Marchmont Street
Paul Richardson
‘Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real old-fashioned Victorian bully’
‘You rotten stinker. I gave you my penny, you bought the sweeties, you’ve eaten all the sweeties, you didn’t even give me one’
‘“Gawd, he’s got some guts, that kid.” You know, ‘cos he was only a youngster after all’
‘Very bad influence on me, my brother. I didn’t swear in those days, I didn’t tell dirty jokes’
‘We used to go round to the theatre at night, just to see his name up in lights’
‘So my daughter for the first year of her life was kitted out entirely by the Williams family’
‘The tears are running down our faces, we were in absolute hysterics. Now that’s lovely’
‘He was angry with himself, sometimes the world, he was fed up. It was like being with a manic-depressive who goes through all the cycles of bipolar in one hour!’
Enter STAGE RIGHT
Derek Nimmo
‘In The Buccaneer when he was playing a schoolboy he was at his best, because he was sort of mischievous and naughty’
‘I went to see him in The Private Ear and The Public Eye, in which he was brilliant, he was absolutely flawless’
‘He was a gift for children, all the funny voices and things, they absolutely loved him’
‘He could be heard all over the restaurant, and the waiters would be screaming with laughter. Oh, he loved the limelight’
‘If he’d been a failure, he could have accepted it as well as he accepted being a success’
From CSE to the BBC
Peter Eade
‘The show is now almost K. Williams’ Half Hour’
Radio STAR
Eric Merriman
‘He came in and he shrieked with laughter at everything I did, whether it was funny or not. And he didn’t laugh at anybody else’
‘That wonderful face of his just used to crinkle up and age, visibly age. It was wonderful’
‘From a scriptwriter’s point of view, you knew that whatever you wrote, he would find something to fit it’
‘Of course, Kenneth was brilliant, and was always over the top and disgraceful’
‘Come along and see it and grab ‘old of it, with your ‘and. It’s all right, it won’t bite cha’
Cordwangles and JAM
Rambling Syd Rumpo
‘I have a theory that I don’t think he quite made it on television. It’s strange, but I don’t think they ever did the right thing with him’
‘Kenneth Horne was the stabilizing factor, he was very, very much the boss’
‘Bits had to be cut out because his mother would laugh the loudest’
‘It was part of his persona to be anti-women’
‘He had intellectual aspirations. He was very interested in the English language, obsessively so’
‘And he was one of the presenters that the entire Jackanory team most liked working with, because they knew he’d come in and he would do it, and do it absolutely splendidly’
‘Then when he was ill, it was the Boy Who Cried Wolf, because you used to get him saying, “I’ve been in excruciating pain all day”’
The MAN WHO TAUGHT HIM COMEDY
Isabel Chidell
‘Kenneth was a very strong personality and I sometimes thought he was too much for my brother, because he was a rather gentle person’
‘I think Kenneth found him very helpful in teaching him a lot about comedy’
‘Of course he was gay but he couldn’t accept it. Not because being gay was abhorrent to him, but because he couldn’t bear to be touched’
Carry on Ken
Dr Soaper (Carry On Camping, 1969)
‘He was lying on this bed, and she was slapping some salve on his penis, and he was thoroughly enjoying himself’
‘He went on my honeymoon with me. It’s a long story. I won’t go into all that’
‘I think a lot of the things that have been said about Kenneth are his own fault, because he does love to pull your leg’
Beyond our Kenneth
Michael Whittaker
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams
Kenneth Williams
‘Mr Horne, how bona to varda your dolly old eek!’
‘Aphrodisiacs – like oysters – if you don’t swallow them quickly your neck goes stiff’
‘Matron, take them away!’
‘Stop messin’ about!’ ‘I’ve got a viper in this box, it’s not an asp’
‘Hello me deerios. Well, tonight I shall have great pleasure…But first of all…’
‘Frying tonight!’
‘Mr Williams, you have…a spastic colon!’
‘Go on Kenny, show us your diction!’
Afterword by Wes Butters
Diary, 22 April 1963
Sources
Index
Acknowledgements
Wes Butters
Copyright
About the Publisher
