A Write Carry On: The Untold Story Of A Man In The Shadows - Author: Mike Cobley - Publisher: Wholepoint Publications (wholepoint.co.uk) - 18th June 2012 - The story of Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell, one of the great unsung heroes of British comedy writing (Carry On films, Up Pompeii! and The Crazy Gang).
Sid James was wandering the perimeter of the small paddock that sat at the rear of Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell's house. Tolly was, at the time, deep into his stint of being screenwriter to twenty-two of the iconic Carry On films series.
Sid was alone and looking somewhat haggard as I slipped out into the midday summer's sun and sat on a small bench at the side of the paddock.
He was dressed in khaki coloured slacks and an open lose fitting untucked check shirt. His sandals, like much of what he was wearing, looked very much on their last legs.
For at least ten minutes Sid kept his distance and remained deep in thought. From inside Tolly's house the sound of Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor holding court was clearly one of the reasons Sid was braving the direct intensity of the sun's rays. Kenny Williams wasn’t his cup of tea – that was common knowledge.
Later we were joined by Tolly. He patted me on the head and smiled and then ambled over to Sid and gave the actor a hearty pat on the back.
‘All right, old chap?’
‘That bloody Williams is getting on my tits, Tolly. I know I shouldn’t rise to it, but the way he looks down his nose at me and talks over the end of my sentences, drives me mad.’
‘He means well, Sid. Anyway, food's up and we are all about to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jim (Dale). Join us, come on.’
With that Sid wandered over, grabbed me by the arm and said: ‘If I ain’t getting out of this neither are you.’ We entered the house, painted on our smiles, opened our mouths and sang ‘happy birthday’ to a rather squiffy looking Jim Dale.
To read more on Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Sid James, Barbara Windsor and the rest of the Carry On cast and crew .. buy a copy of A Write Carry On .. JustCLICK HERE
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)
Supertramp may not be the name that trips off of the tongue
when discussing the Carry Ons, but back in 1975 I was forced to flee a somewhat
numbers depleted cast and crew get together to celebrate my fourteenth birthday
at Brighton Dome in the company of that very band.
As a present from my brother Martyn, I had been invited to
join his very own 'crew’, and head in to the centre of Brighton
to catch the band Supertramp, who had just released their fourth album,
'Crisis? What Crisis?'
Among my fellow group of gig-goers there was much talk of
poppers (alkyl nitrites), of which I happily concluded would mean end of
evening balloons. I was to be both confused and disappointed by naivety!
Rewind back to lunchtime and I was sat in the kitchen of
ex-Carry On scriptwriter Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell's house, quietly observing the
coming, goings and conversations of the few Carry Oners who had accepted the
invitation to Tolly's farewell shindig in honour of his uprooting from his
beloved secluded bolt hole in the picturesque village of Fulking, to the rather
more urban soundtrack of the bustling coastal town of Worthing.
The move had been necessitated after Tolly's breakdown
following scripting twenty-two of the highly successful and lucrative Carry On
films.
Sadly, it was glaringly obvious from the turn out of cast
and crew that the famous Carry On brotherhood counted for little once talent
had flown the nest.
But Kenneth Williams, Barbara Windsor, Jim Dale and producer
Peter Rogers were the 'a-listers' who mingled at Tolly’s along with a
sprinkling of those who worked behind the Carry On scenes.
Conversation was unusually muted, and the expected ribbing
and backbiting was absent. All-in-all, and not surprisingly due to the
circumstances, it was a party that had the air of a wake.
Meanwhile, I was clock watching. I still had to get out of
Fulking and back to Brighton by 7pm to meet my
brother and his cast of merry misfits.
My attendance at my first ever gig was imminent, and I was
almost breathless with anticipation. Supertramp meant nothing to me. I hadn't
heard their music and didn't even know they were American and at the peak of
their prog/pop powers.
Upon entering the Dome I tried to act in a nonplussed and
laid-back manner. Most of the longhairs milling around the venue were sporting
the band's current album title, 'Crisis? What Crisis?' on their t-shirts.
The memory of the gig itself is a
bit of a blur. I remember being highly impressed by both the personality and
musicianship of John Helliwell (woodwinds, keyboards, backing vocals), as well
as the swearing heavily featured on the band's closing number, 'Bloody Well
Right'.
Once back outside and engulfed by the town's ice cold air, I
discovered poppers had nothing to do with balloons! But I went home happy and a
few years wiser to the world.
The next morning my brother presented me with a second
present, a copy of Supertramp's break through third album 'Crime of the
Century'.
For me, much like for those involved in the ongoing Carry On
franchise, the times they were a changin'.
Feedback during the four months since the publication of
A Write Carry On has been both enlightening and informative.
Sally Majors, from
'up Gloucestershire way', emailed to say as a teenager in the early 1970s whilst
visiting her grandparents in East Sussex, they had all been excited to come
across a 'somewhat jovial Sid James and Barbara Windsor' sat in the quiet
alcove of an Alfriston pub.
Sally and her grandfather
approached the couple when they were at the bar ordering more ‘liveners’. Both
were friendly, and Sally remembers Barbara taking a keen interest in her
somewhat ‘off-the-wall teenage attire’.
Considering, at the time, that the Carry On couple were having an unpublicised affair, Sally is, in hindsight,
amazed at how open and forthcoming the duo were.
Another interesting insight, from a
fellowA Write Carry On reader, arrived via a private message on my Facebook
page.
Dan Carter, a self-styled ‘British
comedy film buff’ clearly remembers tracking down Carry On scriptwriter, Talbot‘Tolly’ Rothwell, to the Shepherd and Dog, his local pub in Fulking.
A few whiskeys later and talk
turned to the ins and outs of writing to deadline and the process that saw the scriptwriting
project brought to completion.
Tolly told Dan that Carry On
producer Peter Rogers, once a scriptwriter himself, was both meticulous and
demanding when it came to perusing the various script drafts.
They would return to Tolly with
red crossings and markings as well as being heavily annotated.
There would be a
number of these exchanges, and Tolly felt it was his willingness to take on
board criticism (justified or not) and his quick turn around in ideas
and drafts that kept him onboard the Carry On team for twenty-two of the series thirty-one
films.
Lastly, in this blog entry, the last
hurrah goes to Annie Crocket, now based in Northern France, but during the
early 1960s and late 1970s she was a resident of Eastbourne, in East Sussex.
Annie worked as an extra on many
projects shot at Pinewood Studios. She had muted background scenes in a number
of Carry On films, and got to know a few of the personalities behind their on
screen characters.
Having read A Write Carry On Annie
dropped me a long email. Firstly she congratulated me on bringing out the true
essence of the likes of Kenneth Williams, Sid James, Jim Dale, Hattie Jacques
and Charles Hawtrey.
It was the latter she chatted to
the most. Annie said she found Hawtrey a loner who, when sober, was friendly
and always welcoming of a quiet chat. She said he kept himself pretty much to
himself, and that initially once he began drinking heavily he found it easier
to be a part of such a close nit group of actors.
She also bonded with Kenneth Williams. Always 'on' and never predictable. A true Carry On trait if ever there was one!
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 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.
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!
The forthcoming
free mini-ebook 'Intimate Insights' will bring to a close the final chapter on
my unique tale of growing up with the Carry Ons. In A Write Carry On
(Wholepoint Publications) I offered a glimpse into the life and times of the longtime
series scriptwriter, Talbot 'Tolly' Rothwell.
'Intimate
Insights' delves a little deeper into the household names who were so universally
loved and respected; those icons of British comedy who included Sid James,
Kenneth Williams, Charles Hawtrey, Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, Frankie
Howerd and Jim Dale.
Some of
the mini-ebook’s insights have featured on this blog, others will be unique and
previously unpublished.
‘Intimate
Insights’ will be free to download from Scribd and this blog from 20th
October. Check back regularly for updates.
A little bit of politics in a mainstream comedy film can stem the flow of cash at the Box Office. Take ‘Carry On At Your Convenience’; the twenty-second film in the series.
With ‘Convenience’ a lot of audience goodwill went out the window. In a time of bitter industrial disputes, scriptwriter Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell explored the political themes of the trade union movement.
The script had a noticeable right-wing slant; both mocking and sending-up the unions of the day. In doing so, Tolly alienated the traditional working-class audience of the series.
It was originally conceived with the overtly communist title of 'Carry On Comrade' in reflection of the negative treatment of the union and union bosses.
The film was re-titled 'Carry On Working'. That title was ultimately retained in the film’s closing sequence, a dialogue scene that didn’t appear in Tolly's final draft of the script.
To add even further confusion, the word ‘convenience’ wasn’t used for lavatories in America or Australia, so the film was re-labelled 'Carry On Round The Bend' for release in those countries.
The plot centred on a bolshie union representative Vic Spanner, played by Kenneth Cope, who continually stirs up trouble in the works, to the irritation of his co-workers and management.
He calls a strike for almost any minor incident – or because he wants time off to attend a local football match.
Sid Plummer (Sid James) is the factory foreman bridging the gap between workers and management, shrewdly keeping the place going amid the unrest.
'Carry On At Your Convenience' took a full five-years to cover its full production costs.
The first time I met Kenneth Williams we were stood, along with Jim Dale, in the front room of Talbot ‘Tolly’ Rothwell’s house. Tolly was the then scriptwriter of the much lovedCarry On films (and Kenneth Williams and Jim Dale were two long serving actors of the successful series).
Kenneth was bleating. He did that a lot. If you were in another room with a crowd of chattering people, then that not-so-far-away sound of bleating was more than likely to be the sound of Kenneth Williams holding court.
For when Kenneth was in a room 1/ he was never alone, and 2/ he was the king of all he surveyed and the others were there merely to listen.
‘Is this where you get felt?’ These were the first words Kenneth Williams uttered in my presence. I was barely into my teens and took his query to be one pertaining to non-woven cloth and not the sexually charged nod-and-a-wink meaning he had in mind.
Jim Dale piped-up in my defence and asked Kenneth to pipe-down. ‘He knows I’m only having a laugh, don’t you?’ I smiled back. Kenneth then asked my name and how come I happened to be at Tolly’s gaffe at the same time as comedy royalty.
I explained that Tolly and my dad had been friends since school and that we were often here at weekends. ‘Well, good for you. And what fine profession have you got your eye on,’ inquired Kenneth.
‘I want to be a vet.’
‘A vet. Dirty job. All those hours with you hands up strangers’ arses. What drew you to that?’
‘James Herriot. Well his books, I love them.’
‘Good for you,’ smiled Kenneth. ‘Read and ye shall find.’ He then broke his attention away from me, realised the bulk of guests were in another room .. and the next I heard was the not-so-distant sound of a bleating sheep.
To read more on Kenneth Williams and the rest of the Carry On cast and crew .. buy a copy of A Write Carry On .. JustCLICK HERE
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 aPreston 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.
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 .. JustCLICK HERE
