A Write Carry On - A Screenwriting Bestseller

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

by Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

 

Imagine growing up with the Carry Ons. Getting to hobnob on a regular basis with the likes of Sid James, Barbara Windsor, Frankie Howerd, Charles Hawtrey, Jim Dale and Kenneth Williams. Well, I was that lucky guy. The catalyst for my meetings with the cream of saucy British comedy was Talbot‘Tolly’ Rothwell.

Tolly wrote the scripts for twenty-two of the big-screen Carry Ons, and was a close family friend for all of those glorious mega-grossing box office years.

 

A Write Carry On catalogues not only his eleven years with the Carry Ons, but also Tolly’s time as a Second World War captive at the notorious POW camp, Stalag Luft III (best known for two famous prisoner escapes that took place there by tunnelling, which were depicted in the films The Great Escape (1963) and The Wooden Horse (1950), and the books by former prisoners Paul Brickhill and Eric Williams from which these films were adapted).

Along the way you will get a behind-the-scenes peek at the lives and personalities of all the major Carry On stars. There were a lot of laughs but also a few tears. Oh, and the odd illicit affair too!

I really enjoyed reading about the real people that i only knew from the carry on films.
It was so interesting finding out about the man behind the scripts, a true genius.
Funny, sad and informative from an unusual perspective.
Would recommend this to all. (Verified Amazon Buyer Review)



‘The spine of the book lists his name. The title looks familiar. Even the dust jacket speaks of ideas that had once come so easily to him. But here, in this now unfamiliar room, his past belongs to another and the present holds few clues to his self. Fear takes a grip.’ ('A Write Carry On')

This was the moment when one of the great unsung heroes of British comedy writing knew the game was up. Having been responsible for a rollercoaster half-decade of screenwriting twenty Carry On films, as well as Up Pompeii and The Crazy Gang, Talbot ’Tolly’ Rothwell could no longer recognise the keys on his typewriter. His past had caught up with him.

 

Talbot went on to receive an OBE - yet still managed to be 'A Man In The Shadows’.

 

Featuring the likes of Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Frankie Howerd, Hattie Jacques et al, this gripping tale takes the reader deep into the complex characters who have, even after their passing, become a mainstay of British comedy.

 

‘A Write Carry On’ also take the reader behind enemy lines during the Second World War, when Talbot was incarcerated in the notorious Stalag Luft III. There he teamed up with Peter Butterworth to produce camp concerts which aided tunnelling escape efforts.

"Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me!" - Kenneth Williams (Julius Caesar) Carry On Cleo (1964)

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The Day Eric Sykes, Sid James & Jim Dale Bowled Over The Locals!

It was the dying embers of an all-too-rare long hot summer and my parent's social life was about to peak when an unexpected invitation arrived for them to be among the select guests at a Preston Nomads versus celebrities charity cricket match.

The Preston Nomads were based in the village of Fulking, at the foot of the South Downs, in East Sussex, and it was a ground I knew well as Carry On scriptwriter, Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell, was an honorary member of the club.

I'd spent many a summer's Sunday basking in the tradition of drunken men swinging wood at leather and berating the inevitable early loss of their open wicket. The game itself meant little to me; the open space, relaxed atmosphere and copious amounts of sugary offerings were a different matter.

On this particular day the celebrity side was to feature Sid James, Leslie Phillips, Eric Sykes, Peter Butterworth, Jim Dale and Tolly himself.

We’d spent the morning at Tolly’s while my dad took it upon himself to be chief motivator and bottle washer .. i.e he was getting in the way and taking the coming proceedings far too seriously.

Sid James, Peter Butterworth and Jim Dale arrived just before we left for the game. I sat next to Jim Dale on the short journey and I’m sure I sensed nerves among his quick wit and boyish charms.

From the first over onwards it became pretty clear that the batting total of the local Preston Nomads side was likely to cause embarrassment to the celebrities’ final score. So Eric Sykes took it upon himself to the play the clown, a role he was born too.

His one-liners, fake falls, mimed catches and impersonations brought the host side to its knees .. not an easy position to bat from. The obviously superior Nomads side saw their batting order collapse in just a few short overs.

After whisky-laced refreshments, Tolly and his band of misbehaving brothers stepped up and took under an hour to pass the Nomads total.

Victory was theirs, and the drinks were free. Celebrations went on long into the evening and my dad rescued me from the debauchery not long before its effects would’ve left a permanent scar on my emotional development!  

To read more on Sid James, Jim Dale and the rest of the Carry On cast and crew .. buy a copy of A Write Carry On .. Just CLICK HERE

A Write Carry On

The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

By Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

Available now at Amazon
Available now via iTunes
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The End Of An Era For The Carry Ons!

I was proud of my unbranded 49cc moped. It sat in the family driveway, dripping petrol and oil fuel mixture and rust.

On a whim and a prayer I rose one Saturday morning and decided that I was now competent enough to dispense with endless rides around local streets and cut a path across the South Downs and pay a visit to the Carry On scriptwriter, and firm family friend, Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell.

Following a hearty breakfast and quick safety check of the moped, it was chocks away - followed by a frantic pedal - and the engine spluttered into some semblance of life.

The journey, from my Brighton home to the village of Fulking, was both slow and painful.

I arrived without warning and was greeted by Tolly as though he'd been waiting for me all my life.

He invited me to his kitchen and we sat and chatted over a cup of tea. He seemed nervy and a little distracted.

The root of his unease was a looming deadline for submission of a Carry On script. It was the script that was to be his last in the series.

Tolly's health had been failing. Recently he'd found himself sat in front of his typewriter keyboard, unable to recognise the workings of its qwerty layout.

The clock was ticking and Tolly and was seeing his professional life passing before his eyes.

He parted with the shocking news that he was having to dictate the script to his daughter so that even though the deadline had been missed, at least the it would eventually make it on to the desk of Carry On producer, Peter Rogers.

To read the full account of Tolly's breakdown and the final days of his Carry On scriptwriting career .. buy a copy of A Write Carry On .. Just CLICK HERE

A Write Carry On

The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

By Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

Available now at Amazon
Available now via iTunes
Read On Your Kobo

Kenneth Wliiams And The Showgirl!

There were tales that didn't make it into the final cut of, A Write Carry On. Take, for instance, the one about Kenneth Williams and the showgirl.

Kenneth wasn't one to party. He'd more than likely slink off home after a long day's filming and prefer the company of his mother than that of his fellow actors.

But on occasions he'd venture out and, when he did, he would more likely be the life and soul of the gathering. For all his professional bravado, Kenneth was inwardly shy and full of self-loathing. So when a fan all but lay at his feet in awe of his talent, he wasn't one to walk away.

One such fan was a rather forward and over enthusiastic showgirl, known as Miss Lash.

Unbeknownst to Kenneth she was madly in love with him and had thoughts of a short engagement, luscious wedding and a long and happy married life with Kenneth and their four children!

Miss Lash latched onto Kenneth at one of Talbot ‘Tolly’Rothwell's soirées. She was there at the behest of my brother, Martyn. He was a wild card was Martyn, if the unexpected was expected, then, and only then, would he do the expected. Miss Lash certainty wasn't on Tolly's guestlist!

She waltzed in arm-in-arm with my brother. As the room's attention turned to the somewhat inebriated couple, Kenneth swung round to see what or whom had stolen his spotlight. He liked what he saw.

Miss Lash had the verbals, as well as the attitude. There was no-way he could compete, so he needed her onside. He raised his nostrils into the attack position and, to everyone's surprise, poured compliments on to the unsuspecting Miss Lash. She fell hook, line and sinker for his manufactured charm.

By the party’s end, with Miss Lash fuelled on drink and compliments, she managed to extract Kenneth’s contact details from his nemesis, Sid James.

Sid knew the score, and he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to let Kenneth score an own goal! By 4am the next morning Kenneth had his phone off of the hook and a mood that carried a cloud the size of Russia. 

Tolly used to tell this story with a relish. As much as the scriptwriter loved Kenneth, he wasn’t averse to the actor being taken a peg-or-two. 

A Write Carry On

The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

By Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

Available now at Amazon

A Write Carry On - Available Now!

As if those tender teenage years aren’t bad enough. Then there are family gatherings, birthdays and long Christmas breaks spent with many-a relative you would normally cross the road to avoid. Add to that torrid adolescent mix a house full of iconic British comedy legends and what do you have? You have my early life with the Carry Ons!

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications) catalogues my intimate times spent with many of the Carry On regulars.

The likes of Sid James, Barbara Windsor, Joan Sims, Frankie Howerd, Charles Hawtrey, Jim Dale and Kenneth Williams fell into my orbit via long-time Carry On scriptwriter, Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell.

Tolly changed, for the better, my outlook on humanity, nature and the arts. He also parted with lots of previously untold stories on the life and times of his Carry On years.

I now want to share these unique insights with you. So CLICK HERE and, for an introductory price of just £2, grab yourself a copy of  A Write Carry On. 

Oooh noo, please, it’s wicked to mock the afflicted! Well it might be one of your own! Don’t laugh at her, she might want paying - I told her this was an audition! She’s known to me as Madam Vera Roper, but she’s known to everyone else as The English Open! (Frankie Howerd introducing Mrs Vera Roper, his pianist, who was deaf.)

A Write Carry On

The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows

By Mike Cobley

Wholepoint Publications

Available now at Amazon

This Is Your Life: Coming Out From Behind The Sofa With Kenneth Williams

This Is Your Life was an institution. Only the crème de la crème of the entertainment business were to be sprung with the 'big red book' (that included, for a while, non-celebrities who had done extraordinary things in their lives) from the long running TV programme’s host, Eamonn Andrews.

Early in his broadcasting career Andrews was famous for coming up with off-the-cuff linkings which did not work – such as 'speaking of cheese sandwiches, have you come far?'  


Over the course of a short thirty-minutes that week’s ‘victim’ would be presented with a mini-biography of their life.

For me, keeping the secret was the biggest deal. During late December 1970 Carry On scriptwriter Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell was up for the honour, and it was my dad’s job to make sure his nearest and dearest friends were aware of the impending recording.

The weekend before the surprise (and believe me, in those days it really was a secret) we were at Tolly’s Fulking home for an unseasonally warm get together. Of course, everyone was on egg shells as Tolly’s wife was constantly taking calls from the This Is Your Life production team.

The biggest scare was Tolly’s sudden insistence that he fancied taking part of the following week away. He couldn’t understand why his wife and daughters were so against a late Mediterranean break. 

But, as usual, the women got their way and Tolly vowed to whisk them away come Spring. So, he would be in London, at the allotted time, on the allotted day, and the 'big red book' would reveal the major achievements and events of his life.

Much to my father’s great disappointment he didn’t receive an invite to the recording. Instead we huddled around our small screened black and white television and watched what was to be Tolly’s proudest moment.

Following the airing of the programme Tolly held a thank you shindig in Fulking. It was a ‘bit of a do’ populated by many of the great and good of British Comedy, as well as the scene of my first face-to-face with the Carry On’s formidable producer, Peter Rogers.

A lovely man, as I was to discover over the years, but, to a socially-awkward youngster like myself, he emanated a presence that had me heading for the back of Tolly’s sofa!

At Tolly’s that winter’s evening, it was Kenneth Williams who was able to chop his producer down to my size. Of all the Carry On regulars who were there to raise a glass to Tolly’s success, it seemed that it was Kenneth alone who had the strength of personality to strip Rogers of his apparent air of superiority.

Kenneth would not back down on any topic raised by his employer. As Rogers spouted forth on all manner of topics, Kenneth would respond with a witty anecdote that would show he knew more about the topic than its instigator.

I gradually uncurled from the back of the sofa and was soon joining in the chorus of hilarity being raised from the battle of two such great minds. Rogers was soon crying with laughter, and Kenneth had his nose raised as he drew in the air of victory.  

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications)

available early summer 2012


For A Free Sample CLICK HERE

Contact the author at editor@brighton.co.uk

The Great Escape: A Write Carry On At Stalag Luft III (POW Camp)

Carry On scriptwriter Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell had remained particularly close to one fellow prisoner of war (POW). Peter Butterworth shared his humour and outlook, together they used their ability to construct witty camp plays to the advantage of all the POWs.

While plays and sketches were performed, escape was a possibility. The uproar of laughter easily distilled the rhythmic sound of men digging tunnels.

As the day’s routine of work and punishment gave way to an evening’s lock-down, Tolly and Peter would work hard on the next camp show script.

What the men, and some of the guards, loved most were the double entendres. They missed the warmth and intimacy of female companionship, and Tolly’s ability to conjure up magically side-splitting one-liners had them quoting his scripts for weeks on end.

Slowly but surely excess earth was moved and tunnels began to appear. The men would use the opportunity of the weekend camp performances to conceal the earth in their costumes and release it slowly into piles, while the guards were focused on the crossed-dressed dames who took centre stage.

They were then able to smooth it over with their feet and no-one was any the wiser as the men trooped back to their huts.

One cold winter’s night, after many months of planning, two teams of six men were ready to make their break for freedom.

Tolly and Peter were among those to remain, their services to camp moral and future escape projects deemed too important to lose.

All twelve escapees lost their lives. Ten while on the loose, two after being captured and brought back to camp alive. They were unceremoniously tied and gagged and dispatched by firing squad. With that, the camp concerts came to end.

Upon his return to England, Tolly was airlifted to Devon and to the seclusion of a Dartmoor-based military hospital. He was weak, his wounds were infected and his spirit broken.

Within days of his return his family was at his side. A month later he was allowed home, many months on he was still haunted by the atrocities he’d witnessed.

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications)

available early summer 2012

For A Free Sample CLICK HERE

Contact the author at editor@brighton.co.uk

A Write Cricket Carry On: Afternoon Delights Best Served Off Of A Saucy Wicket!

Cover Designed & Created By Mandy Hills

Every blade of grass that cushioned my purposeful steps on the winding descent from the Devil's Dyke in Brighton to the welcoming bosom of the South Downs village of Fulking is remembered.

Its magic carpet qualities separated the urban bustle of the city from the tranquil timelessness of the all encompassing landscape dominance of the Downs.

The village's high-street ticked to a different time to the one I'd been programmed with since birth. People passed the time of day with either idle gossip or talk of coming local events.

Carry On scriptwriter Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell was often to be found of a weekend attending the Preston Nomads village cricket club, a place where good humour was generous and the winning was a poor second to the good hospitality.

The wives and girlfriends would prepare afternoon tea and post match refreshment, while the men toiled both on the pitch and in their deckchairs. Children ran free and unsupervised. An idyllic memory remembered with fondness.

It was a place where Tolly seemed most at home. Cream teas, cricket and time-ticking slowly. At such places Tolly’s occupation never came up in conversation. No-one’s did. The moment was celebrated, and the toil and trouble that had gotten them there was, for long afternoons, forgotten.

----

I was staying in Fulking as my parents had once again been commandeered to house sit while Tolly and his wife Scotty took to the Mediterranean beaches for a week.

But that very morning Tolly was at home with a deadline looming and a plane due to depart Gatwick mid-afternoon. This was a man in work mode; no small talk and none of his usual poetic musings on nature and life. As dawn broke he slipped into his study and soon his typewriter hit a rhythm that didn't let up till way past the due flight time.

I’d never seen such creative intensity in action. I tiptoed around the house and took breakfast in a surreal hush. How could stilted silence breed such an outpouring of universally loved slapstick humour?

I’d always imagined that the Carry On humour was bred from improvisation. I had visions of Tolly pacing his house, loudly reciting lines and bringing himself to his knees as the double entendres kicked home and he celebrated his own genius. But I didn’t expect this.

Then again, where the Carry Ons were concerned, what you saw on the screen was very different from what was going on behind the scenes!

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications)

available early summer 2012


For A Free Sample CLICK HERE

Contact the author at editor@brighton.co.uk

She Was A Very Generous Soul Was Hattie Jacques

Hattie Jacques was obsessively conscious of her size. I know this because sat on a wall with her at the front of Tolly Rothwell’s house she told me not to worry that I was overweight.

Hattie said that people always stared at her. Those around her were kind and said she was so well known as an actress that people were just indulging in a second take.

But Hattie knew better. They were alerted by the weight first and familiarity of her face second. Subsequently, her confidence was low. She didn’t want me to suffer the same anxieties. That was sweet. She was a very generous soul was Hattie Jacques.

As a Carry Oner Hattie’s often remembered as a buxom, fire-breathing matron. See, size first and great comedic acting skills second. Maybe she had a point!

In truth everyone rated Hattie except herself. The image I retain of her sat chatting to me on Tolly's wall, was a woman who would rather have been anywhere else than in that house full of people. And not just any old bunch of everyday folk, but the theatrical kind, Carry On stars a plenty; all competing, all playing a game of social musical chairs. Sadly, Hattie seemed to have fallen at the first round.

 
We sat for at least an hour. She told me how she loved the bright lights, the adrenalin that came with the shout of ‘action’. The nervous giggles from the wings, the ‘showtime’ knock on the dressing room door. Hattie loved showbiz, but thought little of herself.

It seemed, from the remembered fragments of our conversation, that she’d been happiest during her ‘hungry years’, those early lean ones, when work was scarce and praise had to be fought for.

Hattie’s formative years, when she became a regular in music hall revues, made her eyes glaze over and her face break into a broad smile. Those long since passed blissfully innocent and carefree times were but a moment in her adult life when she liked herself.

They were also the days where she fine honed her skills as a comedian. She even returned for a second bite of the cherry, when having already tasted success in radio, television and film, Hattie went back to her first company, the Players', but this time in the elevated capacity of performer, writer and director.

Before joining the Carry Ons, Hattie worked with Norman Wisdom on two of his most famous films, The Square Peg and Follow a Star.

But it was in the company of Kenneth Williams, Sid James (and later Eric Sykes) et al that she is best remembered .. not for her size, but for her exceptional talent. That would have brought a broad smile to Hattie Jacques’ face. 

A Write Carry On (Wholepoint Publications)

available 1st May 2012.


For A Free Sample CLICK HERE

Contact the author at editor@brighton.co.uk