Four Years of Carry On Blogging!

It's not Brexit Day, it's Carry On Blogging day. Well something like that. Four years ago today I came to the random decision to write a blog about my love of the classic Carry On series of British film comedies. It wasn't part of a strategic plan and I certainly didn't have a Backstop, Matron!

I had tweeted through the @CarryOnJoan account for a year or so and thoroughly enjoyed the interaction with other Carry On fans. It all took off far faster than I ever dared to imagine and I now have 18.6K followers. Moving from 140 odd characters to thought-through blog pieces on all manner of things was a big step though but I'm ever so glad I did it. It is a proper labour of love and sometimes real life does get in the way of all the fun but four years later I'm still at it ;)

The main reason I keep blogging is the interaction it leads to with fellow fans on the internet every day. The internet has perhaps become an increasingly dark and dodgy place but my involvement with it through Carry On Blogging has been (nearly always) a complete and utter joy. 

So four years in, I've nearly 19 thousand followers on Twitter and I've published the best part of 2000 original blog posts. At times it's been a deeply personal take on the Carry On films and how they affected me as I grew up and why I treasure them still. As a fan, writing these blogs on my laptop in my pyjamas, it's quite extraordinary that the blog has enabled me to interview the likes of Valerie Leon, Robin Askwith, Judy Matheson, Juliet Mills, Julian Holloway, Elke Sommer and Patricia Franklin. And through the blog I've met and interviewed superb people like Morris Bright, Amanda Barrie, Fenella Fielding, Madeline Smith and Anita Harris. Not bad for a boy who used to collect Cinema Club VHS tapes from the Woolies Bargain Bin! 

I was thinking about the Carry Ons and their legacy quite seriously recently following my interview with the fantastic journalist and broadcaster Samira Ahmed. Samira is a fan of some of the films and certainly many of the actors and yet she also struggles with aspects of their content, when viewed with a modern eye. The most troubling comment Samira made was regarding the future lifespan of the films. She questioned whether the Carry Ons would survive in the consciousness of the nation. Do they have such a collective cultural pull that they will always be cherished and never forgotten? Until Samira raised that issue I confess I hadn't given it that much thought. I am sure generations to come will not understand the humour or recognise the ever so talented faces who brought the films so brilliantly to life. That makes me sad but that's life and time is passing. 

Sadly the Carry Ons are mainly mentioned these days when one of the actors who appeared in them passes away. Last year we lost far too many familiar Cary On faces and for me, with the death of Dame June Whitfield in December, we really did reach the end of an era. Despite this I think it's important to continue cherishing our rich comedy heritage in this country. I started this blog mainly as a tribute to the tremendous Carry On actresses and supporting actors who never really got the credit they deserved either at the time or within their lifetimes. Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques, Patsy Rowlands, Peter Gilmore, Esma Cannon, Peter Butterworth, Bernard Bresslaw, Amelia Bayntun, Joan Hickson, Bill Maynard, Dilys Laye…the list goes on. I loved them all and although the vast majority are now long gone, they still feel so very much with us thanks to their gloriously big, colourful, comic performances in the Carry Ons. They deserve to be remembered so fondly and I will continue to do so. 

So forget Brexit, if only for the day, and pick out your favourite Carry On film. Stick it in the DVD player or whatever fiendish device you own, sit back, relax and enjoy a Britain that never really existed but goodness, wouldn't it have been nice if it had? What will I be watching? I think on this weird old day, a bit of Carry On Up The Khyber feels just about perfect.

Carry On, and thanks for all the fun.

You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram

Bernie Carries On … as Arthur Upmore

Over the past year I have written a series of blogs covering each of the roles of some of our favourite Carry On stars. I began my looking back at each film role played by the three leading ladies in the series - Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Barbara Windsor - and most recently I've written about all of Kenneth Connor's Carry On performances in the run up to the great man's centenary. 

Today I am continuing a new strand of this series by turning the spotlight on that gentle giant of British comedy, the late Bernard Bresslaw. Probably one of the most under-rated actors in the main team, Bernard was a part of the series for ten years and fourteen films, tackling a superb range of crumbling villains and delightfully dimwitted foils to the likes of Sid James and Kenneth Cope. Bernard enjoyed a long career away from the Carry Ons and spent much of his later life wowing audiences in legitimate theatre. However he will forever to remembered for his clutch of hilarious Carry On supporting turns. 

Bernard joined the Carry On team in the mid 1960s and along with Peter Butterworth was the last main team member to join the gang. Along with Butterworth, Bernard played a series of smaller, supporting roles to begin with before graduating to major roles towards the end of the decade. Bernard fitted in effortlessly with the rest of the team and he's the kind of actor who is working hard but making it look oh so easy. A quiet, erudite, thoughtful family man away from the film studios, I often think Bresslaw has never received the credit he's due as like Connor and Butterworth, he didn't ever seek the limelight or splash his life over the front pages.

So today, we'll bring this series of blogs to an end with my thoughts on Bernard's last role in the Carry On film series, as Arthur Upmore in 1975's Carry On Behind. 

In 1975, after the departure of so many of the leading lights from the series (James, Jacques, Windsor and writer Talbot Rothwell) what was left of the gang reconvened for an update on the classic Carry On Camping. In Carry On Behind, several familiar looking characters went off for a summer holiday at a caravan park. As with Camping, Behind was filmed not in summer but in the early spring so the weather was less than pleasant for all involved - the mud and freezing temperatures clearly visible for most of the film!

Behind is a real hotchpotch of sitcom sequences with no real storyline to speak of - just a bunch of English eccentrics delighting in some increasingly filthy innuendos! Unlike some of the period costume Carry Ons, Behind, set in the grimy world of the mid-1970s really hasn't aged well but lovers of seventies kitch will adore it! I admit I have a real soft spot for this film and it's become something of a guilty pleasure. For me it  is the last proper Carry On ever made. It's certainly much more naughty than previous efforts with much more obvious sexual references and a fair sprinkling of nudity. The whole thing feels much more like a Confessions film, and you can tell Peter Rogers was trying to keep the Carry Ons up to speed with the latest developments at the box office. 

The film features a mix of old faces and newcomers and it is really the cast which carries the film home. As well as regulars Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, Jack Douglas, Bernard Bresslaw, Peter Butterworth, Joan Sims and Patsy Rowlands, I also really enjoy the performances from the likes of Windsor Davies, Carol Hawkins, Ian Lavender, Sherrie Hewson and of course, international guest star Elke Sommer. 

So what about Bernard's role in the film? Well with the absence of some big names Bernard is front and centre as one of Behind's biggest and most bankable stars. Indeed only Kenneth Williams and international guest star Elke Sommer are billed above him. In many ways Bernard provides the anchor for this Carry On last gasp. The threesome of Bernard, Patsy Rowlands and Joan Sims as middle class couple and interfering mother in law is the reassuring sitcom centre to the film and gives us a last chance to see three of our favourite Carry On actors working together and clearly enjoying themselves. Although Joan is given another forgettable shrewish part, playing a character much older than she actually was at the time, the fact she's mainly seen with Bernard and Patsy makes it easier to accept. And Bernard and Patsy are brilliant as husband and wife, surely a sitcom pairing that was begging to be put on the small screen?

As with most Carry Ons, there isn't that much of a storyline and for large chunks of this Carry On Camping re-tread Bernie clearly misses his old sparring partner Sid James. As the everyman of the piece, Bernard is wide eyed and relatively innocent at the bizarre, innuendo encrusted goings on around him and has no idea where to put himself when the likes of Elke Sommer and Adrienne Posta come to call! Of course Patsy, as on screen wife Linda, is always there to catch him in the act of something suspicious even though he's always entirely innocent. 

Much of the humour of their situation is drilled from the arrival of Joan's foul mouthed mynah bird, with vocals from the director Gerald Thomas. Joan, in an early incarnation of the indignant Hyacinth Bucket persona, is never convinced her bird would say anything as crude  as the things it actually comes away with. While this leads to several nicely set up comic misunderstandings, the material is pretty flimsy for such gifted comic actors to work with. Given the fact Behind started to push the boundaries, as Dick had the previous year, the likes of Bernard, Patsy and Joan begin to look slightly out of place. An island of calm in the middle of sea of blue gags and flashes of nudity and crudity. I'm glad they were there as they gave the film some much needed heart, but sadly for two of the actors present it would be their last Carry On with the gang.

I don't really know if Bernard ever went on the record with a reason why Behind was his last Carry On film. I'm not sure if he was offered a part in either England on Emmannuelle. Certainly he continued to appear with the team in the Carry On Laughing series for ATV, also broadcast in 1975, but his Carry On film career came to an end with this entry. The death of Sid James the following April may have made Bernard think twice about appearing in Carry On England as the two were good friends on screen and off. Whatever the reason, Bernard is most definitely missed in the remaining Carry On films, although perhaps given the quality of the last two efforts, he made the right decision not to appear. Patsy Rowlands also made Behind her last association with the team. Although never a main team player, hovering up and down the cast lists, Patsy was an intrinsic and much loved actor and any film without her left a big gap.

The end of Carry On Behind does provide some old fashioned Carry On satisfaction. Warring couples are reunited and everyone ends up happily paired off. The Upmores are seen leaving the campsite happy once more. Joan's Daphne has reunited with her long lost husband Henry (Peter Butterworth). As a note to go out on, it's warm and satisfying. Although in retrospect it really was the end of an era.

I hope you've enjoyed this blog series looking back at all fourteen of Bernard Bresslaw's Carry On contributions. Bernard really was the gentle giant of British comedy. A solid, reliable and very clever actor, Bresslaw has often been overlooked. I hope this series of blogs has shone the light on just how important his contributions were to the Carry On team and just what a superb comedy actor he was.

Stay tuned soon for my next series of blogs looking at all sixteen of Peter Butterworth's Carry on roles. 2019 marks Peter's centenary so what better time to look back at this brilliant actor and his superb work with the team?

You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram

Bernie Carries On … as Sir Roger Daley!

Over the past year I have written a series of blogs covering each of the roles of some of our favourite Carry On stars. I began my looking back at each film role played by the three leading ladies in the series - Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Barbara Windsor - and most recently I've written about all of Kenneth Connor's Carry On performances in the run up to the great man's centenary. 

Today I am continuing a new strand of this series by turning the spotlight on that gentle giant of British comedy, the late Bernard Bresslaw. Probably one of the most under-rated actors in the main team, Bernard was a part of the series for ten years and fourteen films, tackling a superb range of crumbling villains and delightfully dimwitted foils to the likes of Sid James and Kenneth Cope. Bernard enjoyed a long career away from the Carry Ons and spent much of his later life wowing audiences in legitimate theatre. However he will forever to remembered for his clutch of hilarious Carry On supporting turns. 

Bernard joined the Carry On team in the mid 1960s and along with Peter Butterworth was the last main team member to join the gang. Along with Butterworth, Bernard played a series of smaller, supporting roles to begin with before graduating to major roles towards the end of the decade. Bernard fitted in effortlessly with the rest of the team and he's the kind of actor who is working hard but making it look oh so easy. A quiet, erudite, thoughtful family man away from the film studios, I often think Bresslaw has never received the credit he's due as like Connor and Butterworth, he didn't ever seek the limelight or splash his life over the front pages.

So today, we'll continue this new series looking at Bernard's role as Sir Roger Daley (!) in the 1974 historical adventure, Carry On Dick.

Carry On Dick has never been one of my favourites in the series. As a later effort though and one of the last historical films it works fairly well however compared to earlier entries like Don't Lose Your Head and Up The Khyber, Dick is very static and studio-based and some of the cast are starting to show their age. Despite this, the film captures the seedy atmosphere of the times very well and all the scenes set in the Old Cock Inn are brilliant to watch. Dick also provides fans with the last opportunity to see several favourites in a Carry On film. The cast is bursting with team members as all current actors in the gang appear. As well as Hattie, this film is also the farewell for both Sid James and Barbara Windsor. Sid and Barbara would appear in several episodes of the ATV Carry On Laughing series broadcast the follow year (even Hattie would make an appearance) however this would be the last original feature film for all three stalwarts. Also, prolific writer Talbot Rothwell retired from the films after Dick, his health having deteriorated further. Future films in the series would really suffer without his talents.

Carry On Dick tells the well-worn story of highway man Dick Turpin and who else could play Dick but Sidney James. The film follows his gang as they rob the rich and constantly evade capture by Captain Desmond Fancey and Sergeant Jock Strapp (Kenneth Williams and Jack Douglas). Sid's last role in the series is a great one. Dick Turpin is Sid at his twinkly, naughtiest best while the film also provides him with the dual role of the Rev Flasher (!) Dick's cover story as the sedate, understated local vicar. The rest of his gang comprise Peter  Butterworth as Tom and Barbara Windsor as Harriet. Sid and Barbara have terrific chemistry throughout and go as near the knuckle as they could possibly go! 

Dick is in many ways a sequel to the French Revolution romp, Don't Lose Your Head, almost eight years earlier. In that film Sid also had a dual role as both Sid Rodney Ffing and the Black Fingernail. It allows Sid the actor to really work and show some subtlety in performance (Yes that was possible even in a Carry On). It's a great role for him to go out on even though nobody knew it at the time. He was due to appear in Carry On Behind, however touring commitments in the theatre meant the role written for him eventually went to Windsor Davies. 

So anyway, back to Bernard's role in the film. Rising up the cast lists as other veterans take time out or sadly don't come back, Bernard enjoys a fairly large supporting turn in Dick. As the chief law enforcer and fierce-some leader of the Bow Street Runners, it's a towering performance in every sense of the word. Bernard's Sir Roger is not really like any other role he plays in the series and that can surely only be a good thing, as far as the actor is concerned. He's not his usual simple, bumbling accomplice to Sid James and neither is he on full historical villain mode like his parts in Khyber or Follow That Camel. He's an authoritarian who has little time for the antics of Kenneth Williams or Jack Douglas, preferring to spend his time with a bevy of young lovelies. 

Although I'm not mad on the film, I do love the trio of Williams, Douglas and Bresslaw. It's a great triumvirate of comedy, with Douglas as the bumbling Jock Strap, constantly letting down Kenneth's haughty Captain Desmond Fancey, who in turn is constantly deferential and cow towing whenever his superior Sir Roger appears on the scene. The class system in action perhaps? Although seen through a typically bawdy Carry On lens. Poor Bernard loses his clothes at least twice during the film as his stagecoach is repeatedly held up at gun point by Big Dick and his gang. Leaving little to the imagination, Bresslaw is obviously game and as a cheeky behind the scenes snap reveals, the crew weren't afraid of playing a trick on the actors! 

Bernard is paired with the fragrant Margaret Nolan in Dick. Playing Lady Daley, Maggie is more prim and proper than usual and her supporting turn is rather understated when compared to other parts such as her previous role as Dawn Brakes in Carry On girls. Sadly, this would be her last Carry On performance. Much fruitier is Bernard's pairing with none other than Joan Sims. Joan is on fine form as the bogus French Madame Desiree, touring dubious hostelries with her 'Birds of Paradise'. Slipping into her common Cockney, Joan is at her vulgar best and makes for a memorable double act with Bernard once he's despatched his wife back to London!

Bernard spends most of the film stomping about with suitable authority, he may not get the majority of the belly laughs, but it's still a fine performance. In a cast which does still burst with Carry On talent, Bernard stands head and shoulders above them all. Literally. The majority of the action goes to Sid, Barbara, Kenneth Williams and Jack Douglas. This leaves little for Joan, Peter Butterworth, Hattie Jacques or Kenneth Connor to do but Bernie fairs ok. He was perhaps finally stepping into the Carry On leading man role vacated by Jim Dale five years earlier.

Sadly, Dick was the beginning of the end for the franchise, with so many key contributors bidding farewell, even if they weren't aware of it at the time. Bernard would return for one final film adventure with the gang and plenty more besides. With Carry On London still playing twice nightly at the Victoria Palace well into the following year and Bernard appearing in several of the ATV Carry On Laughing episodes on telly, 1975 may have been Bernard's final year of Carrying On, but it was also his most prolific.

Stay tuned for the final blog in this series coming up soon. I'll be looking at Bernard's fourteenth and final role, as henpecked Arthur Upmore in Carry On Behind. 


You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram

Bernie Carries On … As Peter Potter

Over the past year I have written a series of blogs covering each of the roles of some of our favourite Carry On stars. I began my looking back at each film role played by the three leading ladies in the series - Joan Sims, Hattie Jacques and Barbara Windsor - and most recently I've written about all of Kenneth Connor's Carry On performances in the run up to the great man's centenary. 

Today I am continuing a new strand of this series by turning the spotlight on that gentle giant of British comedy, the late Bernard Bresslaw. Probably one of the most under-rated actors in the main team, Bernard was a part of the series for ten years and fourteen films, tackling a superb range of crumbling villains and delightfully dimwitted foils to the likes of Sid James and Kenneth Cope. Bernard enjoyed a long career away from the Carry Ons and spent much of his later life wowing audiences in legitimate theatre. However he will forever to remembered for his clutch of hilarious Carry On supporting turns. 

Bernard joined the Carry On team in the mid 1960s and along with Peter Butterworth was the last main team member to join the gang. Along with Butterworth, Bernard played a series of smaller, supporting roles to begin with before graduating to major roles towards the end of the decade. Bernard fitted in effortlessly with the rest of the team and he's the kind of actor who is working hard but making it look oh so easy. A quiet, erudite, thoughtful family man away from the film studios, I often think Bresslaw has never received the credit he's due as like Connor and Butterworth, he didn't ever seek the limelight or splash his life over the front pages.

So today, we'll continue this new series looking at Bernard's role as Peter Potter, in the 1973 beauty pageant farce Carry On Girls. 

I've written about Carry On Girls before and I'll reiterate now that it's probably one of my least favourite films in the entire series. The film misses Kenneth Williams, Hattie Jacques and Charles Hawtrey keenly while I disagree with the promotion of Barbara over Joan Sims at a time when Sid and Joan's on-screen relationship had hit a new level of fabulousness in Carry On Abroad. Girls is rather a shoddy looking film, and I know it's supposed to be set in a down at heel seaside resort but still... Girls, which tells the story of Fircombe's attempts to generate publicity and income with a beauty contest, pushed the series nearer the knuckle than ever before. It's much bawdier than any previous film in the series and it really does reflect changing times both in society and the British film industry. 

There are good points in the film of course. The cast includes solid turns from reliable actors like June Whitfield as the feminist Augusta Prodworthy, Kenneth Connor as the bumbling Mayor and Joan Hickson as the absent-minded hotel resident Mrs Dukes. Best of all is the superb Patsy Rowlands as the mayor's wife Mildred. Rowlands enjoys better than average screen time in this film and it's great to see her grab a proper comedy role in the series. Apart from that, Girls is really the Sid and Barbara show. Sid is Sidney Fiddler, the mastermind behind the contest while Babs is Hope Springs, his love interest and the main contestant. 

Bernard plays advertising executive Peter Potter, an old contact of Sid's Councillor Sidney Fiddler, who Sid persuades to visit Fircombe to help publicise his much-heralded beauty contest. Bernard plays Peter completely straight, quite innocent and quietly suspicious of Sid's motives! The chalk and cheese partnership is a fruitful one and provides much of the comedy in the film. Bernard grabs more screen time than in previous films thanks to the absence of the likes of Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtrey and Kenneth Williams. Indeed, with Sid and Barbara playing totally to type and Joan in an underwritten role on nagging wife autopilot, it's up to Bernard to carry a lot of the film. 

Probably the highlight of Bernard's performance in Girls is the infamous drag sequence. Of course Sid is behind this conniving stunt as he persuades Peter to masquerade as a beauty contest entrant, Patricia Potter. This is all done with the full intent that Peter is defrocked, literally, for additional publicity. The sight of Bernard Bresslaw in long flowing wig, pearls and feminine underthings is something I'll never forget, no matter how hard I try. And once he's in his very seventies frock and stood next to the pint sized Barbara Windsor, the comedy contrast is exploited to the full. 

Once Bernard is in the line up alongside all the other nubile young lovelies, it's only a matter of time before the truth comes out. Augusta Prodworthy's band of feminists descend on the hotel together with David Lodge's police inspector and it's all good fun, if you're prepared to overlook Jimmy Logan's dreadfully over the top camp performance as TV host Cecil Gaybody. The success of the whole drag sequence is down to Bernard playing it completely straight and because he's a big butch bloke, it makes it really very funny. A shame the rest of the film didn't hold up to this level of panto farce.

The arrival of Peter Potter's fiance, Paula Perkins, puts a dampener on proceedings. For once Valerie Leon is playing dowdy rather than glam and the change is quite astonishing! Of course it isn't too long before a transformation sequence takes place and Valerie is back to her glamorous best. Paula is very anti-beauty pageant and suspicious of one Sidney Fiddler (quite rightly too!) After a little coaxing from Barbara's Hope Springs, Paula decides to enter the contest herself and in a jaw-dropping moment reveals herself in a rather startling bikini to all and sundry. One question which has never been answered is why Valerie's performance was subsequently dubbed by co-star June Whitfield. I don't think Valerie has ever mentioned it and when June was asked some years ago, she confirmed it was her voice but couldn't remember doing it! 

In the end, the beauty contest is completely sabotaged by Augusta Prodworthy's band of feminists and Sid, Bernie and the girls are at their mercy under a drenching of water, soot and itching powder. Once again Bernard is the straight man to Sid's wheeler dealer but it's a relationship which functions like a well oiled machine. Sadly it was the last time the pair would work so closely together on screen, although they would both appear in the next in the series, Carry On Dick. I believe the friendship was so strong that Bernard turned down Carry On England in 1976 because Sid had just passed away. What a loyal, lovely chap.

Stay tuned for my blog on Bernard Bresslaw's next role in the series, in the 1974 film Carry On Dick.

You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram