Beyond The Carry Ons: ‘Intimate Insights’ Coming To Wholepoint Publications

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications) is not the whole story, it just marks the halfway point in my collection of reminisces about growing up with the Carry Ons.

The first ebook focused on my family's friendship with the big screen series long-term scriptwriter, Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell.

The final part of the tale, Intimate Insights, is currently at the first draft stage and will be available for download (via Amazon/Kob/iTunes) before the year's end.

 

Like A Write Carry On, the new ebook has been picked up by Wholepoint Publications.

Intimate Insights will focus on my meetings with many of the regular Carry On cast. The majority of those off screen stumble-upons took place in Fulking (Sussex), at the home of 'Tolly' Rothwell.

A few of them, like my chance meeting with Julian Clary (Carry On Columbus), are worthy of their inclusion in Intimate Insights.

 

Julian was fine company; a thoughtful, engaging and open interviewee – despite being caught somewhat off guard.

 

 

As for the featured Carry On regulars (Sid James, Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Barbara Windsor, Jim Dale, Hattie Jacques, Joan Sims and Jim Dale), separately they were great company. Together, in certain combinations, they could be a nightmare. I had the (mis)-fortune to witness both!
 
Intimate Insights will also feature the illustrations of Mandy Hills. Mandy drew the cover for A Write Carry On, and has teamed-up with me in the past where she has supplied illustrations for poetry anthologies and magazines .. as well as drawing a mean Virginia Woolf!   

Available now at Amazon - iBookstore - Kobo

A Write Carry On - The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

by Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

Julian Clary Had His Part In Carry On Columbus!

Of course the Carry On film franchise didn't come to an end when its long-term scriptwriter Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell’s contract came to an end with ‘Dick’, in 1974.

After stuttering on for another four films, there would be a break of some fourteen years until what, so far, has become the series finale, ‘Columbus’.

The ‘big four’ from the past to join the project were Jim Dale, Bernard Cribbins, Leslie Phillips and June Whitfield.

The reviews were as disappointing as the film itself, but what of the thoughts of the cast? The closest I came to an answer was having the opportunity to quiz Julian Clary.

The unplanned meeting was a few years back at the Sussex Arts Club, a private members establishment in Brighton.

At the time Julian was looking to retire to the country and write books. He'd had enough of the endless touring and showbiz glitz.

It was a sedentary lifestyle he was to soon to tire of, and it wasn't long - five years to be precise - before his next tour.

At the time of 'Columbus,' Julian told me, he would delight in 'shocking people'. That some people 'deserved to be shocked.' And ‘wasn't upsetting the apple cart what the Carry Ons were all about anyway?'

Julian believed, quite rightly, that his suggestive and middle-England bothering style of humour was very much of the Tolly Rothwell genre. Julian adored the double entendres packed Tolly scripts.

He also loved Tolly’s many great comedy moments that brought the very best out of Frankie Howerd, in Up Pompeii.

And it was with Frankie that he seemingly identified the most. Julian admitted to the same self-doubts and anxieties, as well as the promiscuous early years as a blossoming gay man.

So when the call came with an offer of a part of in ‘Columbus’ the fact that Frankie was to be on board was a big plus point. Sadly the great man passed away just two days before filming got underway.

Julian wouldn’t be drawn on the negative sides of the experience, just that it had been an honour to be asked and subsequently involved.

If he’d been born twenty years earlier, no-doubt Julian would have stood side-by-side with Frankie, Sid James, Kenneth Williams et al. As it was, the true Carry On spirit was pensioned off at the same time Tolly called it a day.

A Write Carry On

The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

By Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

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