'A Write Carry On' Crosses The Atlantic!

I contacted Cass Adams in the hope of setting up an interview with Colin Meloy of The Decemberists. She’s a busy freelancer working out of Portland, Oregon, and I thought she’d be sympathetic to a new book I was undertaking (The Americana Hour – coming March 2013). But all Cass wanted to talk about was my current book, A Write Carry On. No probs, I thought, so here’s what wasn’t meant to be .. Cass Adams interviews me about A Write Carry On!

Cass Adams (CA): Mike, it’s so great to be able to chat with someone who actually met the Carry On cast. Here in the US we love the English humour, though I think sometimes the lines get blurred. Were the Carry On films of the late 60s and early 70s really like life on the streets of England?

Mike Cobley (MC): Well it’s good to hear the Carry Ons are appreciated away from these shores. I guess, in all honesty, that period you mention was, in actuality, very different from what was on screen. I think that had to be the case really, otherwise people wouldn’t have been drawn to the cinema. Movies are an escape from real life. No-one wants to work Monday to Friday and then pay to go and see their life reflected back at them from the big screen.

But having said that, they do need to identify with the humour and characters. Much like music, there has to be a connection. Whether it is a bumbling doctor, scary matron or leery older man, they all know someone in real life who fits the bill.


CA: Kinda guess that makes sense. But what about the sexual politics? No way, these days, could men be so overtly sexist and controlling of women. How did women view the Carry On humour back then?

MC: I remember being in the pub (bar to you guys) and hearing women turn on Talbot Rothwell (the Carry On scriptwriter) and tell him that if their husbands treated them that way they’d be out the door with a good clip round the ear. Then again, in the same breath they admitted they found it funny. Because, if you watched closely, often the women came out on top anyway (no pun intended). Yes it is cringe worthy viewing now, and much of the humour is of its time, but what is timeless is the Carry On cast. People’s love for the likes of Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, Charles Hawtrey and the rest, burns as bright today as it did back then. Sometimes it’s hard to separate the actors from the characters.

CA: I guess that’s where the genius of the writer comes in?

MC: Yes, the unsung heroes! That’s why the full title of my book is A Write Carry On: The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows. Because someone like Talbot Rothwell, who scripted twenty of the series, was so pivotal to its success yet barely recognised by its audience.

CA: Was very interested that in A Write Carry On you mention how outside of the circle Frankie Howerd was. There’s a sad little bit where you describe Frankie leaving a Carry On party alone.

MC: I was sat on a hill observing all those great actors as they stumbled out of Talbot Rothwell’s front door and were whisked away in a fleet of vehicles. Sid James was all touchy feely, Kenneth Williams was loud, brash and appeared to believe the party had been in his honour. Meanwhile poor Frankie Howerd emerged into the fading daylight with his head bowed and shoulders slouched. He looked so detached and lonely, much as he had at the party. Tears of clown, I guess!


CA: Finally, I feel I must ask you about Talbot Rothwell himself. You describe beautifully your relationship with him (you as a shy and awkward teenager and him as fatherly figure) but on his death bed you seemingly would have nothing to do with him. What changed, what went wrong?

MC: It was all my fault. The only change in Talbot Rothwell was his health. He suffered a depilating stroke, as well as an earlier breakdown, and wasn’t able to speak for the last few years of his life, whereas I went through puberty and emerged on the otherside as a punk/mod. I still believe totally in the ideals and beliefs I took from those movements, but what I’m not proud of is how, in viewing Talbot’s generation as the old guard, I dismissed a lot of relationships in my life which, for one reason or another, I was never able to mend.

CA: I love the (book's) cover. Think I’m right in saying that the faces we see are those of Sid James and Barbara Windsor. But is that you with your back to us?

MC: You certainly are right about Sid and Barbara, but it is Talbot Rothwell with his back to us. The cover’s designer, Mandy Hills, was conveying Talbot’s place as ‘the man in the shadows’, when it came to the public’s perception of all things Carry On.

CA: Note you went with a publisher (Wholepoint Publications) for the digital release of A Write Carry On. Wouldn’t it have been easier to put it out yourself?

MC: Wholepoint Publications is very much built around an ethos, one shared by those with a Mod leaning. On these shores the whole musical tribal thing defines many people’s lives from puberty to the grave. Iain Munn’s digital publishing house is a Mecca for those of us who believe in the Mod maxim of 'clean living under difficult circumstances.’  I wouldn’t have considered putting the title with anyone else, so it’s lucky for me Iain said ‘yes’! 

With thanks to Cass Adams c.adams@musicspectaor.com for the use of this interview. It will appear in full in a Portland, Oregon, publication at a later date.

A Write Carry On available for just £2 .. CLICK HERE