Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa! TV - Kenneth Williams TV - Kenneth Williams: Good Afternoon TV - Reputations II: Kenneth Williams TV - Ruth Jones - Hattie Jacques - Hattie 2012 TV - John le Mesurier: It’s All Been Rather Lovely TV - Michael Palin - John le Mesurier - The Guardian - Dave Allen - Dave Allen: God’s Own Comedian TV - Norman Wisdom: His Story TV - Norman Wisdom - Rick Wakeman - Slava Palounin - Michael Grade - Vera Lynn - Honor Blackman - Nicholas Parsons - Esther Ransom - Spike Milligan: Love, Light and Peace TV - The Life and Legacy of Spike Milligan TV - Terry Wogan - Eddie Izzard - John Cleese - Ken Dodd’s Happiness: Arena TV - Ken Dodd: How Tickled We Were TV - Ken Dodd - Eric & Ernie 2011 TV - Morecambe & Wise TV - Victor Lownes - Peter Cook - Stephen Fry - Richard Ingrams - Clive James - Mike Myers- Kenny Everett - Cleo Rocos - Barry Took - Bernard Manning - Esther Rantzen - World in Action TV - Sid James - Alan Simpson - Eric Sykes - The Late Great Eric Sykes TV - Leslie Phillips - Les Dawson - The Many Faces of Les Dawson TV - The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin TV - Neil Pearson - Michael Grade (II) - William G Stewart - ITN News TV - Bob Monkhouse - Sir David Frost: That Was the Week that Was TV - Dick Emery - Michael Parkinson - 50 Years of Comedy on BBC TV - Alexei Sayle - Toby Young - John Moloney - Jim Davidson - Jo Brand - Imagine: Jo Brand - Arena: Whatever Happened to Spitting Image? TV - The Comedy Vaults: BBC2’s Hidden Treasure TV - Melvyn Bragg TV - Mel Brooks - Rory Bremner - Michael Billington – The Two Ronnies TV - The Young Ones TV - How the Young Ones Changed Comedy TV - The League of Gentlemen TV - Lenny Henry: A Life on Screen TV - The Corbett Report - Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon TV - The Best of Bad TV: When Comedy Shows Goes Wrong TV - Too Funny to Fail: The Life & Death of the Dana Carvey Show 2017 - Love, Gilda 2018 - To Be Or Not To Be 1942 - Mel Brooks - Utterly Outrageous X-Rated Comedy TV - Python at 50: Silly Talks & Holy Grails TV - Monty Python (Almost) The Truth TV - Imagine … Lenny Henry TV - Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives & Magic TV - Too Young to Die TV - Bob Monkhouse: Master of Laughter TV - Jimmy Tarbuck: The Laughs Are on Me TV - Bill Maher TV - The Outcast Comic TV - Chaplin: The Birth of the Tramp TV - Rude Britannia TV - Carry On: Secrets & Scandals TV -
The essence of being funny is confidence. Kenneth Williams, Fantabulosa! BBC 2006
Friend and Neighbour: What time you coming round then? Good. We’ll watch the tele together – you choose. ibid.
Kenneth Williams: They’ll be nothing on. There never is. ibid.
Kenneth Williams’ mum: Oh, look at that!
TV repair man: That’s our new seventeen-inch console, madam.
Kenneth Williams’ mum: I should think seventeen inches is enough to console anyone. ibid.
Lots of people on about Joe’s [Orton] death. Everyone phoning and asking the same thing – why? ibid.
My father was a Cockney; he hated my kind of talk. Kenneth Williams, The Russell Harty Show 1973
The essence of all true communication is a lack of inhibition, isn’t it? That’s the essence of it. ibid.
Share My Lettuce. Kenneth Williams Revue Show
Yes I’ve put stuff down about suicide. How one would go about it. What would be the best method, all that kind of thing. Kenneth Williams, Good Afternoon 1976
Kenneth Williams’ memorable performances on radio, television and film made him one of the best loved comedians of his generation. Reputations s5e4: Kenneth Williams: Seriously Outrageous, BBC 1998
‘He was a melancholic depressed man shot through with moments of delight.’ ibid. Miriam Margoyles
One of the more unlikely soldiers in the British army. ibid.
Round the Horne was the most popular radio show of the day. ibid.
Williams was in big demand … A master at controlling an audience. ibid.
Williams’ comic persona was now a form of self protection. ibid.
By the mid-1960s Kenneth Williams’ flared nostrils, elastic vocal chords and distinct brand of comic hysteria had made him a unique performer. Nowhere more so than in the Carry On films. Reputations s5e5: Kenneth Williams: Desperately Funny
He became his own material. ibid.
He [Orton] urged Kenneth to shed his inhibitions. ibid.
He could be appalled by his own behaviour but the reaction it generated filled an emotional gap in his life. ibid.
Just a Minute was more than just a game show to Williams. ibid.
But in real life Williams could be far ruder and far angrier. ibid.
The television chat show and Williams became its king. ibid.
He had mused on suicide since his earliest days. ibid.
Incredibly talented and fascinating woman both on and off screen. Ruth Jones, played Hattie in BBC’s ‘Hattie’
You just have to be a funny fat lady. Hattie Jacques
I don’t like playing battleaxes. I want to feel protected like any other woman. I’m just a helpless little kitten. I’m pathologically shy. Hattie Jacques
Oh I realise of course it was the sight of me in the shower that aroused your slumbering manhood. Hattie Jacques to Kenneth Williams, Carry On
You’re the nation’s favourite silly frigid fat girl. Hattie, BBC 2012 **** John le Mesurier to Hattie; viz also Andy Merriman, Hattie: The Authorised Biography of Hattie Jacques
Anyone can see you’re lovely. ibid. John the driver to Hattie
This is you being hunted. ibid.
It’s an interesting sort of life. ibid. Hattie
I won’t hurt him. Or the boys. ibid. Hattie to John the driver
John’s had lapses; we both have. ibid. Hattie
You’re not the first, you know. I’ve weathered the storm before. ibid. John le Mesurier to John the driver
I’ll be your little secret. ibid. John the driver to Hattie
There’s nowhere else I’d rather be. ibid. John to Hattie
I can’t do anything without you. ibid. John le Mesurier to Hattie
Mummy and daddy are going to get a divorce. ibid. Hattie to boys
Hattie’s secret relationship with John Schofield lasted for several years. In 1966 while she was filming in Rome John left Hattie for another woman. Hattie and John le Mesurier remained close friends until her death in 1980. ibid.
Despite being a seemingly ever-present face on cinema and television screens for over fifty years, John le Mesurier never considered himself anything other than an ordinary jobbing actor. John Le Mesurier: It’s All Been Rather Lovely, BBC 2012
Appearing in a hundred films in the fifties and sixties alone. ibid.
Still reeling from Joan’s affair, John received a job offer that would lift his spirits and his career to a new high [Dad’s Army]. ibid.
This sort of still small voice of benign confusion. Michael Palin
I don’t want any fuss. I just want to be like an ordinary sergeant. John le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson, Dad’s Army
John le Mesurier wishes it to be known that he conked out on November 15th. He sadly misses family and friends. John le Mesurier self-penned death notice The Times 16 November 1983
It’s all been rather lovely. John le Mesurier
The character he cumulatively created will be remembered when others more famous are forgotten, not just for the skill of his playing but because he somehow embodied a symbolic British reaction to the whirlpool of the modern world — endlessly perplexed by the dizzying and incoherent pattern of events, but doing his best to ensure that resentment never showed. The Guardian 16 November 1983
On screen we saw the master fool, a cheeky comic character with great musical talent and a physical prowess which made Norman Wisdom Britain’s biggest and most bankable film star of the fifties and sixties. His was a natural talent. Norman Wisdom: His Story, BBC 2012
They regularly stole food to survive. ibid.
He walked from London to Cardiff to look for work. ibid.