'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

 

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

A Write Carry On

Available from 18th June 2012

 

 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!

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

To buy a copy at the introductory price of just £2 CLICK HERE

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