Comedy Spotlight - Peter Sellers

Peter Sellers was a British comedy actor known for his many roles in film and on radio. Although he was christened "Richard Henry Sellers", his parents opted to call him "Peter", which was to have been the name of their first child, however this child was stillborn.

Sellers began his career on stage as a drummer whilst touring with his parents, who were both members of a touring variety troupe. Over time, Sellers developed a talent for mimicry and comedic performance, this would serve him well for most of his career.

Sellers himself led a rather odd life, from an early age, he developed a very close relationship with his mother, to the point at which his long time friend, Spike Milligan, regarded as being somewhat worrying and un natural. Sellers also had a rather odd relationship with religion, with his father being an adherent to the Church of England, and his mother being a non practicing Jew. He didn't find out about his Jewish ancestry until he entered a Catholic school, and took it upon himself to follow the tradition of Jews taking the beliefs of their mother, although it was not clear as to why he found it important to do this, as Sellers himself was never a practicing Jew. Spike Milligan noted that Sellers seemed to have a deep resentment of this Jewish heritage, and was once moved to tears when Milligan presented him with a Jewish candelabrum as a christmas gift, an act which Sellers misunderstood as being an anti-semitic insult.

Sellers joined the RAF at the age of 18 in 1943, although no record exists of whether he joined willingly or was conscripted but it is known that his mother attempted to have him exempted from military service on "medical grounds", this request was denied.
Due to his chronic myopia, for which he wore glasses his entire life, he was excluded from pilot training, and instead found himself performing mainly administrative duties, which he found to be exceptionally boring, although the experience he got from dealing with senior RAF officers provided the inspiration for "Group Captain Mandrake" one of the characters he played in "Dr. Strangelove".

To escape the dullness of administration work, Sellers volunteered to join the "Gang Troupe", a unit of performers who provided entertainment to troops and personnel throughout the UK and India throughout the war. Although Sellers toured extensively with the Gang Troupe, he was known to have greatly exaggerated the time he spent touring and entertaining, as well as his importance to the company.

Sellers was posted back to England in 1946, and eventually demobbed in 1947, however his attempts to get back into theatre were somewhat lackluster, with him only being able to secure work sporadically. Sellers, being somewhat vain and egotistical (something which caused numerous problems throughout his entire career), took all the rejections he recieved personally, and allowed this resentment to build up over the years, frequently resulting in fits of unfocused rage being directed against anyone unlucky enough to be nearby.

Sellers eventually decided to try and kickstart his career by auditioning for several BBC radio productions, and enjoyed a decent amount of success, being cast in various radio and TV broadcasts, however, it wasn't until he telephoned BBC radio producer Roy Speer directly, whilst pretending to be Kenneth Horne, a major radio personality, to "recommend" himself. Speer saw through this deception, but decided to audition Sellers anyway, admiring his cheek. This led to him becoming a top bill star on BBC radio, and introduced him to many lifelong friends, such as Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Michael Bentine, with whom he went on to perform extensive work with in "The Goon Show".

Sellers met Australian actress Anne Howe in 1949, and they later married in 1951, after Sellers had begun to find fame in films, with his first big break being cast as "Harry" in the 1955 film, "The Ladykillers". Their marriage started off seemingly idyllic, but as time went on, Sellers' strange behaviours and fits of rage, largely directed against his wife and children, began to erode the relationship.

Sellers career as a comedy actor plodded along, as did his rather strange home life, for the remainder of the 1950s, however a big turning point in his life came in 1960, when he was cast opposite Sophia Loren in "The Millionairess". Sellers was initially not interested in the role, however when he found out he was to share extensive screentime with Loren, he changed his mind. This was due to him having an obvious attraction to her, and seemed to be under the impression that she was attracted to him, despite both of them being married and also the fact that Loren couldn't stand him. This culminated in Sellers returning home one night and declaring, in front of his wife and two children, that he didn't love them as much as he loved Sophia Loren, and that he intended to leave them for her.
The "relationship" with Loren never materialised, and soon after, Anne Sellers began an affair with their decorator, having gotten tired of Peters continual abuse, humiliation, drug and alcohol abuse, and, above all, his flagrant womanising. Sellers was known to regularly have sex with female extras and production staff, and made no secret of it, even speaking about his sexual exploits to his children, both of whom were still very young and had no understanding of what he was talking about.
Sellers son, Michael, stated that his father once woke him up in the middle of the night and asked for advice on whether he should divorce or not, and later directly asked both Michael and his sister Sarah, who were aged 7 and 4 respectively at the time, who they loved more. Sarah answered she loved both parents equally, while Michael answered he loved his mother more, this response received yet another violent outburst. The marriage ended in divorce in 1962, with Sellers remarking that he hated both his children and never wanted to hear from them or their mother ever again.

Despite his off-screen antics causing problems for both him, his family and his work, Sellers continued to get regular work, being a "bankable" star in films and still a hit on radio, however his runaway success playing the inept French detective Inspector Clouseau in 1963s "The Pink Panther" served only to fuel both his egomania and his paranoia, but did establish a long term working relationship between Sellers and director Blake Edwards. This came after Sellers decided to relocate to America after the death of his father in 1962, and his close friends noted an increase in Sellers erratic behaviour and soon he became increasingly difficult to work with, as he became more and more dependent on alcohol and drug abuse.
More film success followed, with Dr. Strangelove in 1963, and A Shot in the Dark in 1964, which was a sequel to The Pink Panther.
Soon after, Sellers met and married Swedish actress Britt Ekland, based on a misplaced recommendation by his astrologer friend John Morris. They had only known each other for 10 days when they married.

During the filming of "Kiss me Stupid" in 1964, Sellers and actress Kim Novak butted heads over how things should be done, causing numerous problems on set. Sellers left the production as, on the evening of the 5th of April, he took copious amounts of amyl nitrate in preparation for sex with Ekland, which caused him to have 8 heart attacks over the course of three hours. Director Billy Wilder was quoted as saying he didn't care about Sellers heart attacks, as you had to have a heart in order to have them.

It took Sellers a fair while to recover from this, however he made appearances in several major successful films, including "Whats new, Pussycat?" and "After the Fox", in which he appeared with Ekland.
During the filming of this movie, Sellers tried to have director Vittorio de Sica fired for "disrespecting his wife", a move which was unsuccessful and led to problems on set. Sellers also caused problems by loudly and repeatedly humiliating and berating Ekland during filming (nobody disrespects my wife but me!)
Sellers career chugged along until 1967, when he was cast in the James Bond spoof "Casino Royale".
For some reason, Sellers was under the impression that he was being cast in the role of James Bond, and was to play the role straight, as he had constructed the false reality in his mind that he was now going to start playing "serious" roles in movies. Unfortunately for Sellers, this was not the case, and the film itself was intended to be a satirical comedy farce, lampooning the James Bond films.
On set, Sellers and Orson Welles openly hated each other, this stemmed from Sellers jealousy of Welles imagined friendship with Princess Margaret, as well as Sellers disgust at Welles being allowed to perform magic tricks on film, this, along with the director demanding that he ad-lib funny dialogue and do stupid things on film, angered Sellers as it destroyed his vision of the film being "straight". Sellers eventually left the production, it was never established whether he was fired or if he quit. The film itself was eventually reworked as most of it had been filmed, but as Sellers was no longer available to film missing scenes, a new storyline had to be woven together from both old and new footage, resulting in a bizarre farcical movie which made very little sense, but was still a hit nonetheless.
Later in the year, whilst filming "The Bobo", a poorly received comedy film in which Sellers starred alongside Ekland, Sellers mother suffered a heart attack and died, this affected Sellers greatly, as his scarily close relationship with his mother had always been there. It was at this point that Ekland said the abuse she received from Sellers began to get physical, and Sellers drug habits became more and more out of control.

Sellers career took a sharp downturn after this, with his marriage to Ekland ending in 1968 after she tired of his abusive attitude towards her, both at home and when working together, and a string of unsuccessful films, including a further three Pink Panther sequels. Sellers relationship with Blake Edwards deteriorated as well, with Edwards describing Sellers mental state as akin to that of an inmate in a lunatic asylum. Sellers himself had long become resentful of the fact that, in his words, "people didn't like Peter Sellers, they only liked the characters he played", and he soon began to describe himself as being little more than an empty, personality free "shell" into which various persona's flowed and channelled themselves.

Sellers married actress Lynne Frederick in 1977, and almost immediately their relationship was an abusive one, with Sellers being known to repeatedly physically abuse her. in 1977, Sellers suffered another heart attack, and was fitted with a pacemaker, as the years of drug and alcohol abuse finally caught up with him whilst on a flight from Paris to London.
Sellers filmed "Return of the Pink Panther" in the same year, and the film was a success, reigniting Sellers career as a film star, although by this time, Sellers was sick of playing Clouseau, and the head of United Artists wasn't sad to see him go either, as by now, Sellers mental problems were becoming a very serious issue, compounded by the fact that Sellers refused to seek any professional help.
1979 saw Sellers film "Being There", a film project he had wanted to do since the late 60's, mainly as he identified with the original books main character, the personality free gardener "Chance", struck a chord with Sellers, as "Chance" simply ends up being whatever other people want him to be, similar to how Sellers saw himself to be.
The film was a critical success, and led to Sellers appearing in various other productions, however the film caused a rift between Sellers and his 15 year old daughter Victoria, who, when asked what she thought of the film, said simply "dad, you looked like a fat old man". Sellers took an immense dislike to this description of his own "masterpiece" and after a violent confrontation, disowned both her and his other daughter Sarah.

Sellers final film, "The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu", released in 1980, was critically panned as being an "inept attempt at comedy".
Sellers had numerous projects in the pipeline following this disaster, however his health worsened, and his marriage to Frederick ended in divorce. he did make an attempt to reconcile with his son, however on the 22nd of July 1980, shortly after taking lunch in his room at the Dorchester hotel, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack. Although he was hospitalised, he eventually died shortly after midnight on the 24th of July.



I first encountered Peter Sellers whilst watching one of the "Pink Panther" movies during my childhood, and although the inept behaviour of Inspector Closeau was funny at the time, when I saw Sellers in other roles, I realised that although Sellers was a brilliant comedy performer, his abilities were somewhat limited.
His life is interesting to me, as his "funny" personality on screen sharply contrasts with the dark off screen personality,  to which, by all accounts, meant he was a complete and utter bastard to everyone around him and was quite rightly despised by just about everyone who knew him.
He represents the physical fusion of the concepts of both the "unhappy clown" and of the stereotypical "diva", who is allowed to carry on doing as they please with no one willing to tell him "no".
He is quite rightly regarded as a comedy genius, as his ability to"nail" characters and get laughs is unparalleled, although this ability came at the price of his sanity, as he frequently was unable to "get out of character" once the need for it had ended, almost as if he enjoyed being someone other than "Peter Sellers".

Comedy Spotlight - Bob Monkhouse

Bob Monkhouse  (Full name Robert Alan Monkhouse), was a British comedian whose career spanned over 50 years.

I, like most people my age, first came across Bob when he was presenting one of many game shows he hosted throughout the 1980s, I forget which one exactly as he presented so many in my lifetime.
At first, I was not aware he was a comedian, but what impressed me about him was his extremely amiable and easy going manner, as well as his quick witted quips. The first time I actually saw him as a comedy performer was in 1994, when he was one of many comedians who ITV devoted one of their "An audience with..." programs to, and then a year later, the BBC gave him a series titled "Bob Monkhouse: On the spot". Both these shows highlighted his quick wit and ability to make just about anything amusing, particularly so when he performed a routine he called "Bobs comedy connections", where he would ask the audience to give him two completely unrelated subjects and would then perform a 10 minute routine in which he would make up a series of gags which would connect the two subjects (something which I have yet to see ANY other comedian do half as well as Bob could).Bobs showbiz career began in his teenage years, however he didn't begin with comedy, instead, he began as an illustrator, doing artwork for various British comics such as The Beano and The Dandy, nether of which he received any artists credit for, as was the rather odd tradition of the time.
Later, Bob and his life long friend Denis Gifford formed their own publishing company, specialising in comic artwork, gag writing and rather oddly, erotic fiction.
After he completed his national service, Bob tricked his commanding officer into signing a letter stating he was a war hero and recommending that the person reading it should give him a job, which Bob then used to secure employment at the BBC, thus beginning the career which would serve him well for the next 50 years.
Initially, Bob worked as a gag writer and comedy performer for radio shows, but soon enough he began to diversify into writing material for other well known comedians of the 1950s, such as Arthur Askey, Max Miller and Bob Hope,  he also began making a name for himself on the club circuit as a double act with Denis.
Bob began presenting TV shows in the mid 50s, mainly game shows, where his wit quickly garnered him a reputation as a household name in his own right, and thus secured him more work on stage and screen.
The early 1960s marked the real beginning of Bobs comedy career, as Denis, taking Bob quite by surprise, decided to dissolve their partnership and move to America where he had managed to secure work as a gag writer for numerous American comedians (although Bob admitted in his autobiography that he had begun to tire of having to carry Denis, who, although a good gag writer, was not a very good comedian or comedy performer, as he lacked the wit and charisma required to be successful on the comedy circuit)

Bob began appearing in numerous films (The first "Carry on" film, "Carry on Sergeant" being one of the most notable) and on TV programs, although his presence on television didn't become secure until the mid 60s, when in 1967 he became the presenter of the hugely popular TV show "The Golden Shot" (again, Bob admitted in his autobiography that he, via a series of well placed negative comments to the producers, managed to get them to sack the original presenter Jackie Rae, and hire him, again, citing that Jackie was not really suitable for the job as he lacked the charisma and wit to engage with the audience both at home and in the studio). What followed from then was five years of uninterrupted work and huge success, however the good times began to turn bad.
Firstly, Bob had invested in a nightclub venture with an acquaintance of his, which seemed to be turning a decent profit, unfortunately though, Bobs faith was misplaced, as his "friend" ran off with a lot of the money and the nightclub ended up being an expensive white elephant that barely attracted customers.
Bob also engaged in a series of extra marital affairs during the 50s and early 60s, including an admitted single sexual encounter with a male-to-female transsexual (although Bob stated he was not aware of this until after he and the trans woman had had sex and Bob made a comment about her vagina seeming to be somewhat smaller than he was used to). Bobs most famous, and most dangerous bit on the side though was an affair with actress Diana Dors, who at the time as married to
small time gangster and all round bastard Dennis Hamilton. Bobs autobiography states that when Dennis eventually found out that Bob had been shagging his Mrs (via having people follow her and listening to her phone calls) he confronted Bob as he left a party in the early hours of one morning, producing a straight razor and saying he planned to "slit (bobs) eyeballs", to which Bob admits that purely out of terror he engaged in the only fist fight he had in his entire life, resulting in Hamilton receiving a knee to the groin and Bob dislocating his knee cap due to the sheer amount of force he put behind it.
The final nail in the coffin which saw Bob disappear from screens for a while came in 1972, when the producers of The Golden Shot came to believe that Bob was accepting bribes from companies to feature their products as prizes on the show, so he was "released" and replaced with black comedian Charley Williams. Bob stated years later that at no time had he accepted any bribes, and that the reason for his sacking was due to a misunderstanding when a friend of his, who happened to work for razor and knife manufacturer "Wilkinson Sword" was seen handing Bob an envelope which contained a rare book Bob had been looking for as a gift. It didn't help that a few weeks later some of the prizes featured on the show were Wilkinson Sword products, which Bob had seen and said he thought they would make a good prize for the show.

With work on TV suddenly drying up, Bob returned to stand up and gag writing, but also diversified into after dinner speaking. These projects did Bob well, but he really wanted to get back on TV, he didn't have to wait long as in 1974, the producers of The Golden Shot, who were unhappy with Charley Williams performance as host (and the subsequent massive drop in ratings), came and asked Bob to return to the show, Bob agreed, although his salary was drastically increased, and he was allowed to pursue other projects whilst working. Bob later wrote that he bore ATV (the company that produced the show) no ill will, but he was slightly miffed at the fact that he had been sacked without being given the chance to explain or defend himself from the accusations of bribery, and found it somewhat amusing that they came crawling back to him after he was told that he "wasn't important to the shows success".  The Golden Shot did enjoy renewed success after his return, but was eventually cancelled following the end of the 1975 season.

By the early 80s, Bob was still working as a writer and after dinner speaker, but had largely given up on stand up due to the proliferation of early 80s "alternative" comedians, whose material and routines he considered to be vulgar and no better than the extremely offensive "blue" comedians who dominated the club scene from the mid 70s through to the early 90s (throughout his career, Bob eschewed extreme racist and homophobic material, and very rarely used words such as "fuck" in his act). He also became an object of ridicule for some of the impressionists of the time, and suffered the humiliation of being branded as being "smug" and insincere whenever he made an appearance on TV, although he presented a few game shows in the 80s, including Family Fortunes and Bobs Full House, but had very little comedy related stuff going on on the telly.
Bob enjoyed a career renaissance in the mid 90s, when he found himself being booked for live shows on university campuses following his "Audience with...." appearance and a guest spot on "Have I got news for you". Following this, he also released a series of live stand up videos, which, unlike his TV appearances, featured much more "Adult" oriented material (such as frank discussions about his many sexual liaisons and various sexual problems he encountered as he got older), but still retained his signature quick wit and mastery of ad-lib material.
He returned to daytime TV by presenting a series of game shows, such as the £6400 question, Wipeout and Celebrity squares, and was a regular guest on chat and variety shows.

Bob only made national "scandal" headlines twice in his life, the first occasion in 1979 when he was accused of making and selling illegal copies of movies from his vast collection (Bob was an expert on early cinema, and had an extensive collection of silent movies and early TV programs on cine film, many of which had thought to be lost until the British Film Institute inventoried his collection after his death). The case went to court and he was eventually cleared, although he later wrote that he found the whole experience humiliating.
The second time Bob hit the headlines was when in 1995, a thief stole his archive of "gag books" containing a lot of his original material which he had written down since the beginning of his career. Bob offered a reward of £15,000 for their return, but no one came forward. The thief was eventually arrested and the books returned 18 months later.

Bob died in 2003 from prostate cancer, which he had been receiving treatment for but it was not successful as at the time, prostate cancer was not well understood and effective treatments had not been developed. Death didn't stop Bob from returning to TV screens though, as in 2007, Bob appeared in a series of adverts to promote "Male cancer awareness week", in which he made various quips about how prostate cancer kills more men than his wife's cooking. The campaign was a success and led to increased research and more effective treatments for the condition.

Comedy Spotlight - Carry On....

The "Carry On.." series comprised of 31 feature films, a TV series and a number of stage productions that were immensely popular in the UK starting from the late 1950s up until the late 1970s.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, who has lived in the UK since the beginning of the 1960s will have seen at least one of the Carry On films. In more recent years the films seem to have become a staple of bank holiday and weekend schedule fillers for the ITV network, although the BBC has shown some of them at some point.

Once regarded as the epitome of home grown British comedy offerings, recent years have seen the Carry On films being regarded somewhat unfavourably amongst critics, although it must be said that most of the complaints about the films seem to stem from criticism of the franchises later entries, which mainly favoured jokes based on bodily functions, sexual innuendo and objectification of women, as well as some elements of absurdest humour.

I, like most people of my age, first discovered the Carry on films via television, as the final film in the original series "Carry On Emmanuel" was released in 1978, a full two years before I was born, and the attempted reboot in the form of "Carry On Columbus" was released when I was 12, and being as it had a 15 Certificate, I was not able to watch it until it was released on video.

I have to say that my opinion of these films has changed somewhat over the years. When I was younger, I found the films to be somewhat hilarious due to their cheeky and titillating nature, however as I have gotten older, their constant repeats on TV has hammered home the fact that the films are a relic of a bygone age, and now many of the jokes in them are extremely dated,  and with many of the films bordering on being little more than poorly written soft core porn films.

For what they are, they represent a series of cheaply produced comedy films hailing from an era where cinema was still a strong entertainment medium and required film studios to come up with large amounts of commercial output for profit. As Television began to overshadow cinema, the quality of production on the films was noticeably much lower, and the films format changed in order to continue attracting adult audiences, with varying degrees of success.

Most of the films' humour comes from them pretty much being a feature length "sitcom" style format, characters are introduced, along with their foibles, fun is poked at them, stuff happens, there is a happy ending.
Some films produced in the mid 60s also attempted to parody popular film styles of the day, Carry On Spying lampooned the numerous spy films of the 60s, while Carry On Cleo mocked big budget historical epics, however they never really strayed from the tried and tested "sitcom" format.
The films also drew heavily from the vaudeville theatre circuit, and featured many stock characters familiar to theatre audiences such as the nagging wife and her henpecked husband, the dirty old man, the naive young promiscuous woman etc.

The films themselves can be broadly categorised into four "eras"...

1958- early 1963 - The "Family Entertainment" Era.
Films made in this era - Sergeant, Nurse, Teacher, Constable, Regardless, Cruising, Cabby




In the 1950s, television had yet to supplant radio and cinema as the preferred entertainment medium of the masses. So, as it stood, on a night time or on weekends, whole families would make their way to cinemas expecting to receive several hours of entertainment for the cost of only a few shillings. This, coupled with the decline of the theatre, meant that film companies were struggling firstly to produce material to fulfill audience expectations, and secondly to make material that would reap a reasonable return on their investments.
The 1950s saw an explosion of the so called "B-movie" genre, which more often than not would end up being a cheaply produced bit of filler produced in order to provide an afternoons entertainment to mainly working class families. As these films were cheaply made, they more often than not featured very simple and unchallenging plot lines on subjects that the audience could relate to. Westerns, sci-fi, war films and dramas were all made that fit in this category, however it wasn't until 1958 that producer Peter Rogers and director Gerald Thomas who had already worked together extensively on other films, teamed up to produce the first film in the Carry on series, "Carry On Sergeant". This first film set the format for nearly all the films that followed, as it cast B-list (ie, cheap) comedy performers into roles and made use of their talents by having them act in material that was relatable, in this case, young men doing national service and all the pitfalls and problems that came along with doing the two year mandatory military service required by the state at the time.
It also set the standard for writing for the remainder of the series, in which the producers assembled a large team of gag writers and required them to quickly churn out scripts that could be made on a modest budget and be entertaining without being too corny. Using this format, it enabled at least two films to be written and shot in a year, ensuring that audiences would have something to watch and the producers would be able to quickly sell their films to distributors.
The film was a great success and was soon followed up with Carry On Nurse, which was themed around the goings off behind closed doors in a hospital. Again, this film was successful as it managed to balance light entertainment style comedy with a romance story.
The successes kept coming in the form of  "Teacher" and "Constable", however the next film in the franchise, "Regardless", marked a change in the format.
"Carry On Regardless" departed from the usual sitcom style in favour of a series of related sketch comedy set pieces, centering on people who worked for an employment agency. The film itself ended up being successful, although as it didn't follow anything resembling a set plot line, much of it ended up on the cutting room floor for timing reasons.
The next film in the series "Cruising", was the first film to be made in colour, and returned to the traditional sitcom format, following the misadventures of two young women who go on a Mediterranean cruise looking for a change in lifestyle and also looking for love.
The final film in this era was "Carry On Cabby", which returned to being filmed in black and white, as the previous film had many cost over runs due to the expensive colour film it used. "Cabby" was a simple story about the owner of a taxi firm who neglects his wife and then ends up having to compete with a rival taxi firm who enjoys much success due to the fact that it only employs attractive women as drivers. It was at this point that the "light entertainment" style humour began taking a back seat to more adult oriented humour....

Late 1963 - early 1966 - The "Parody" Era.


Films made in this era - Jack, Spying, Cleo, Cowboy, Screaming

The final five films made in co-operation with Anglo-Amalgamated distribution ltd saw the carry on team depart from their usual send ups of every day life, and instead turn to lampooning popular film types of the era. "Jack" was a parody of period adventure films, "Spying" lampooned the various cold war spy thrillers of the 60s, "Cleo" had a pop at historical epics, "Cowboy" took on the Western genre and finally "Screaming" was an OTT pop at the various gothic horror films that were being pumped out by companies such as Hammer.
It was round about this time that the series' humour started to become much more "bawdy" in nature, becoming very reliant upon double entendres, innuendo and visual gags , losing a lot of its wit in favour of knob/fart jokes and thinly veilled sexual puns, that said, the films still remained popular in the UK, particularly amongst the working classes who had yet to purchase a television set.

Late 1966 - 1968 - The "Middling" Era.

Films made in this era - Dont lose your head, Follow that Camel, Doctor, Up the Khyber

 1966 saw a few changes, first and foremost, Anglo-Amalgamated decided that they no longer wished to pay towards the production or distribution of the Carry on films, mainly due to financial problems but also due to falling cinema audience numbers, but even more so because the new chairman of the board at Anglo-Amalgamated, Nat Cohen, disliked the Carry On films with a passion, and ordered them to be dropped.
With more and more family entertainment coming courtesy of the now much more affordable Television set, cinema began to fall out of favour amongst the film series core audience, so a rethink in format was required.
Having enjoyed some success with switching to a more adult oriented gag format, it was decided that the Carry On films would be aimed squarely at teenage/young adult audiences, thus allowing for more dirty jokes, sexual innuendo and so on.
As Anglo-Amalgamated had stopped distributing the films, a deal was struck with the rank organisation, which aimed to increase viewing figures by going for international distribution, however this came with a price. The first two films in the series dropped the "Carry On..." moniker altogether, as it as felt it would not mean anything to American audiences, plus it was also a moniker associated with Anglo-Amalgamated, who were one of Ranks biggest competitors.
"Follow that Camel" aimed to increase American viewers by including actor Phil Silvers in the cast, and he replaced a role intended for Sid James, who at the time was recovering from a heart attack.
"Don't lose your head" and "Follow that Camel" failed to engage American audiences, who simply didn't get the pun and innuendo laden humour, and they also performed rather poorly at the British box office, as people simply didn't know they were carry on films.
The next film in the series, "Doctor" saw the reinstatement of the "Carry On.." title, but was intended by Peter Rogers to be the last film made in the series. Unfortunately for him though, the film was a runaway success, so less than a year later, the cast was brought back in "Up The Khyber", which again was a runaway success.
By this time though, the films were starting to become laden with not only innuendo, double entendres and other lowbrow humour, they were also starting to show more and more semi-nudity, usually in the form of a scantily clad Barbera Windsor....things began to go downhill...


1969 - 1978 - The "Adult Comedy" Era

Films made in this era - Camping, Again Doctor, Up the Jungle, Loving, Henry, At your Convenience, Matron, Abroad, Girls, Dick, Behind, England, Thats Carry On!, Emmanuelle

The beginning of the 70s saw the film series hitting its lowest ebb.
On the one hand, the films were still enjoying a moderate amount of success at the box office, however on the other, critics of the carry on films had begun to notice the lower quality of the material, and the shoestring budgets the films were being made on.
The first film of this era "Camping", is probably the best known of the entire film series, not because it was a laugh a minute comedy fest, but simply because it was in this film that contains the infamous scene in which Barbera Windsors bra flies off, briefly exposing her breasts, other than that, the film is a simple low quality comedy about two men who are desperately trying to get their girlfriends to engage in sexual intercourse with them, but failing due to the girlfriends mothers. Sid James plays Sid Boggle, a role obviously intended for a much younger man. also, the film, which was supposed to show people on a camping holiday, was shot in winter, so most of the time the field that doubled as the camp site was swimming with mud and rainwater, and it was freezing cold...the cast weren't too impressed.
The films went on, producing more tired old gags, mostly revolving around sexually frustrated men in some fashion, however with the making of "At your Convienence", the "Carry On.." team dropped a massive bollock.
The mid 70s saw the beginnings of a few changes in British society. First and foremost, trade unions began to become an increasingly powerful force amongst the working classes, so, when "At your Convenience" decided to portray trade union members as lazy and dimwitted, the films core audience was none too impressed, leading to calls to boycott the film.
The producers quickly churned out "Matron" as a way of trying to gloss over the hideous insult they had just laid at the doorstep of their core viewership, returning to poking fun at the middle classes and the NHS, "Carry On Abroad" saw them poking fun at silly foreign people and ex-pats, who by the 70s had begin to flock to live overseas to escape the rapidly declining social conditions in the UK.
Another bollock was dropped when the film "Carry on Girls" mocked the concept of beauty pageants, but instead ended up insulting feminists and equal rights campaigners by basically being an excuse to have a film which spends most of its time having old and ugly men ogling scantily clad young women.

In 1972, it was decided to see if the concept of the films could be transferred to television, mainly as a way of breathing life back into the franchise but also as a way of getting some viewers back who had deserted the cinema. The series, entitled "Carry On Laughing" ran for 12 half hour episodes and starred many of the Carry On.. regulars in some form or another. Each episode would be in a different setting and would attempt to make fun of whatever time period or setting it was in, however due to the strict censorship requirements of TV, the crude gags were scaled back in favour of slapstick and carefully crafted double entendres...it wasn't a success, especially when held up against other sitcoms of the time, all of which had been specially crafted for TV by experienced writers used to working in the genre.

1974 saw the departure of many of the gag writers who had been with the series since the beginning, one of whom, Talbot Rothwell, actually suffered a nervous breakdown as the pressure to write more and more gags got too much for him.
1975s entry in the series "Behind" attempted to recapture some of the popularity of "Camping" by having the film based around a holiday camp type theme, again, it ended up being a dismal failure.


"Carry on England" followed in 1976, and pretty much abandoned the concept of "comedy" in favour of being little more than a soft core porn film, with numerous scenes of gratuitous female nudity throughout and with a young Patrick Mower playing a role intended for the recently deceased Sid James. The film was based on an unfilmed script left over from "Carry on Laughing" and featured hardly any of the usual Carry On regulars.

"That's Carry On!.." came along in 1977 and ended up being the final nail in the coffin for the Carry On.. series, as it was little more than a feature length clip show, with links done by Babs and Kenneth Williams, with all the jokes in those bits revolving around Kenneths urgent need to urinate, which he finally manages at the end of the film by pissing up a door.
Peter Rogers finally called it a day and decided that was enough and it was time to put the series to rest...but then one year later, a private investment company offered him £349,000 to make a film capitalising on the success of soft core comedy porn films such as the "Confessions of..." series, the end product of this venture being the truly awful "Carry on Emmanuelle", which manages to fail spectacularly as a comedy film by not being in any way funny, and fails as a soft core porn film as, oddly, there is no nudity on screen whatsoever, instead, the film rehashes numerous old double entendres and crude puns and reduces all of the Carry On regulars to being B characters, although it could be argued that this was a good thing being as that by now, most of those still featuring in the Carry On.. films were all somewhat old.

"Emmanuelle" was the last film in the series, although "Carry on Columbus" came along in 1992 and featured many alternative comedians as well as some who had appeared in the original films. The film wasn't terribly well received and since then numerous attempts to reboot the Carry On.. series have all ended in failure.

The Carry On.. series as a whole offers a window into the changes that occurred in British society over the course of nearly 30 years, but whereas they started off as being quite well written genuinely funny comedies, they soon devolved into little more than offensive smut.

Comedy Spotlights - Dave Allen

Dave Allen (Real name David Tynan O'Mahony) was an Irish comedian who enjoyed much career success throughout the 1960s and 1970s, before seeing a re-emergence during the early 1990s.

I first encountered Dave Allen during his careers second wind in the early 90s, when ITV aired a show named simply "The Dave Allen Show".
Immediately his comedy style struck a chord with me, as opposed to the alternative comedians of the time whose comedy mostly seemed to revolve around juvenile fart gags, slapstick and explaining how bad they were at relationships, Dave would sit and tell clever and engaging anecdotes about everyday occurances, all while calmly smoking a cigarette and sipping from a glass of what everyone assumed was whisky (most of the time, it was actually ginger ale).

In many ways his style was similar to another favourite of mine, Bob Monkhouse, insofar as that his stories were witty and were not prone to flights of fantasy or absurdity,  but at the same time they, like the comedy stylings of Monkhouse and Billy Connolly, were based on ordinary, every day observations.

It was only in later years, starting with the BBCs airing of "The Unique Dave Allen", that I learned something of this mans career, which stretched back to well before I was born, and was still as funny now as it had been back in the days when Dave was the BBCs number 1 comedy draw, and, somewhat different to the stuff I was used to from 1990s BBC comedy, which centred mainly on quick sketch style comedy such as "The Fast show" and "Harry Enfield & Chums".


Allen began his television career with an appearance on "New Faces" in 1959, which quickly saw him being snapped up to host pop music programs, due to his good looks, quick wit and his sense of dress. Prior to this, Dave had been a regular on the club scene and for a time worked at Butlins where he fleshed out his own style.
His big break did not come courtesy of the BBC however, instead, his first exposure to full time TV comedy came courtesy of Australian television, where while on tour there in 1963 he accepted a request to be the front man for a live American style chat show, his exposure and popularity soared as the show, titled "Tonight with Dave Allen" proved to be a big hit.
6 months into the gig however, he earned a ban from Australian TV when during an interview with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, he repeatedly ignored the producers signal to wind up the chat for a commercial break, eventually shouting at the producer to "go off and masturbate somewhere".
This of course wasnt well received by TV executives and the show was pulled form the schedules, however after a few weeks, the ban was quietly repealed as Daves popularity amongst viewers showed that they weren't really bothered about him swearing on television.

He returned to the UK in 1964, and after working almost continuously on the stage and making occasional TV appearances, he eventually secured a place on the Val Doonican show, which led to him getting his own show, which had a similar format to his Australian TV outing, in 1967.

The BBC came calling in 1968 and saw Dave begin the first major and continuously successful part of his career in Britain in the form of "The Dave Allen Show". In a change to his usual routine, the program saw him begin the format which would remain virtually unchanged for the rest of his career, as the Dave Allen show was a mix of sketch comedy sandwiched in with his familiar story telling, here the sketches would always relate to the monologue bits in some fashion.

For this portion of his career, his monologues would usually comprise of material relating to his life and upbringing as a catholic in Ireland, more often than not poking fun at the rituals and dogma of the catholic church, but also on its bizarre effects on peoples lives. Dave, who identified as an Atheist for most of his life, attracted much anger from christian viewers, who regarded his material to be offensive and blasphemous, doubly so during the sketch comedy elements where he would often dress as various religious figures such as priests and even on occasion as the pope himself, and would perform ridiculous and farcical routines mocking the church and all its trappings.
Much of Allens material from the late 60s through to the late 70s was based around religion in some form, not always Catholicism either, he also mocked Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Protestants mercilessly, prompting round after round of complaints to the BBC, who staunchly defended him, mainly because they received very high viewing figures off the back of his shows.
Religion was not his only source material though, he would also point out the absurdities of politics, including many jabs at controversial subjects such as apartheid, he would comment on the battle of the sexes, the concept of marriage and having children, on peoples working lives and sexual problems, he would comment on social inequality, social taboos and idiosyncrasies relating to stereotypes.
As many have pointed out, and many comedians that emerged during the 1980s have admitted, Dave Allen inspired many of the 1980s "Alternative" comedians insofar as he, unlike many of the popular "Club circuit" comedians of the time, such as Bernard Manning etc, eschewed racist, sexist and just downright offensive material.

During the 1980s, Dave began to fade from the spotlight, being seen as somewhat of a relic of a bygone age when people such as Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Lenny Henry etc were all beginning to be popular amongst the youth audience, however Dave still continued to work for the BBC on a semi regular basis, producing comedy shows such as a series simply titled "Dave Allen", but also he began to act in more serious roles, namely in the works of playwright Alan Bennett.
Dave finally fell out with the BBC when in 1990, the 10pm airing of one of his shows on BBC 1 attracted a hitherto unheard of number of complaints from viewers about the amount of offensive language featured in the show, mostly his liberal use of the word "fuck". Dave laughed the complaints off, however the BBC, who had stood with him throughout the myriad complaints about his material over the years, had changed somewhat during the late 1980s, becoming far more politically correct and concerned about not causing offence in any way to any of their viewers (this policy has led to the BBC making some of the most bizarre choices over the years). Thus, they chastised the man who had brought in many viewers and been behind a lot of the most successful comedy shows the BBC had produced up to that point. The incident was even brought up in parliament and MPs debated over the use of swear words on television and whether there should be tighter censorship rulings.
Dave left the BBC in disgust later that year, going into semi-retirement, returning to screens briefly in 1993 to front a series for ITV which was similar to his usual monologue/sketch comedy, however after this his appearances on television become sporadic, however it did mark a change in his material, which became more observational based comedy, concentrating on social commentary about how the world was changing and how he was finding things becoming increasingly difficult as he got older.
He eventually returned to the BBC in 1996 for a 6 episode series titled "The Unique Dave Allen" in which he spoke about his life and career in comedy whilst linking to sketches and routines from his earlier work with the BBC, although he ruled out a full time return to TV as by this time, he was in his 60s and had had enough of the atmosphere in TV land.
He made various one off appearances in TV specials and on chat shows throughout the remainder of the 1990s and in the early noughties, as well as making a few live stage appearances, but by this time, many people had never heard of him and, mainly due to Daves dislike of "repeats", had never seen any of his earlier material, so he was seen as something of a strange curiosity in the comedy world.

Dave Allen died peacefully in his sleep in 2005, leaving behind his wife of 18 months, 3 children from his first marriage, and, 3 months after his death, his wife gave birth to his third child.