Kenneth Williams Unseen

THE PRIVATE NOTES, SCRIPTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

Wes Butters & Russell Davies

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Cast of Characters

Introduction by Russell Davies

The DEATH of Kenneth Williams

Marchmont Street

Enter STAGE RIGHT

From CSE to the BBC

Radio STAR

Cordwangles and JAM

The MAN WHO TAUGHT HIM COMEDY

Carry on Ken

Beyond our Kenneth

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams

Afterword by Wes Butters

Sources

Index

Acknowledgements

Copyright

About the Publisher

Cast of Characters

Michael Anderson (b. 1929) One of the four beneficiaries of Kenneth Williams’s will, Michael became Kenneth’s agent (at ICM) in 1980, shortly after the death of his initial representative, Peter Eade.

Gyles Brandreth (b. 1948) The prolific author and former Conservative MP for Chester (1992–7) worked closely with Kenneth on his literary productions. Uniquely among Kenneth’s friends, he has blamed himself publicly for ‘giving up’ on Ken, deterred by his difficult behaviour in the last years.

Peter Cadley (b. 1965) He was a young employee of Michael Whittaker’s when a casual remark, mentioning his admiration for the Carry On films, led to a surprise dinner for him to meet his hero. He maintained close friendships with both Pat and Louie after Kenneth’s death.

Angela Chidell (b. 1941) The mother of Robert Chidell was a piano teacher in North London. She suggested Kenneth Williams as her son’s godfather because of their long-standing family connection.

Isabel Chidell (b. 1918) The paternal grandmother of Robert Chidell is the sister of the actor John Vere, the man who, Kenneth said, ‘taught me all I know about comedy’.

Robert Chidell (b. 1975) Kenneth’s godson became front-page news at the age of 12 after inheriting 50 per cent of Kenneth’s belongings plus £30,000. An aspiring musician, he lives in the West Country with his wife and baby son.

Isabel Dean (1918–97) A dignified and beautiful actress, very popular in her profession, she was snubbed by the major West End manager-producer of her day, and never enjoyed the career she deserved. She was one of several women invited to consider the possibility of living with Kenneth Williams.

Sir Clement Freud (b. 1924) Grandson of Sigmund Freud, the former Liberal MP for the Isle of Ely (1973–87) was a fellow panellist on Radio 4’s Just a Minute throughout Kenneth’s involvement in the show.

John Harding (b. 1948) After reading glowing press accounts of his play, For Sylvia, in Edinburgh, Michael Codron cast him in My Fat Friend. It was his first West End engagement and was mired by another of Kenneth’s insecure walkouts that, at the time, he cited as ‘health reasons’.

Sir David Hatch (1939–2007) Successful as a Cambridge Footlights revue member in the Cleese generation, he became a radio comedy producer, originating Just a Minute, then successively Head of Light Entertainment (Radio), Controller of Radio 2 and Controller of Radio 4. He took over as Managing Director (Radio) but was out of place in the John Birt era. He ended his career as Chairman of the National Consumer Council, then finally Chairman of the Parole Board.

Norman Hudis (b. 1923) The forgotten man of the Carry On tradition wrote the first six films in the series. Moving to America, he wrote for Cannon, Hawaii Five-O and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Nick Lewis (b. 1966) As a Warwick University undergraduate, he struck up a correspondence with Kenneth Williams in the late 1980s. They met just once: at Joe Allen, eight weeks before Kenneth’s death.

Betty Marsden (1919–98) The ripe-voiced actress shared both the microphone and the stage with Kenneth in Round the Horne, Beyond Our Ken and Cinderella. She also appeared in two of the Carry On films. She lived in an elegant houseboat in Isleworth.

Eric Merriman (1924–2003) The prolific scriptwriter created Beyond Our Ken with Barry Took, and after Took’s departure wrote it alone. He went into television and co-wrote, for example, several series of the celebrated sitcom Terry and June.

Derek Nimmo (1930–99) Chiefly famous for his comic-cleric roles on TV, he was a long-term fellow panellist on Just a Minute, and most active late in life as a theatrical impresario, organizing worldwide tours. He died after a fall downstairs at his home.

Richard Pearson (b. 1918) A character actor with a wonderful career in meek and understated roles, he shared with Kenneth and Maggie Smith the success of The Private Ear and The Public Eye. His family became a domestic refuge for KW.

Bill Pertwee (b. 1926) The surviving doyen of Dad’s Army (as Warden Hodges), he had been the bits-and-pieces man in the casts of Round the Horne and Beyond Our Ken. He also participated in three Carry On films.

Paul Richardson (b. 1944) Kenneth’s friend and neighbour at Marlborough House for sixteen years, he was left 50 per cent of KW’s belongings, including his diaries and letters. He is currently Technical Director of Sadler’s Wells.

Peter Rogers (b. 1914) The producer of the Carry On films, who entered the film industry as a writer of religious subjects for the Rank Organisation, still works at the Pinewood Studios.

Jeremy Swan His vast list of credits in children’s programming include Jackanory and Rentaghost, of which Christopher Biggins has said: ‘It was all due to the most brilliant director-producer – a mad Irishman called Jeremy Swan, and it was he who instigated all the completely insane stuff like the pantomime horse. We used to cry with laughter.’

Barry Took (1928–2002) Best known to the public as a quiz chairman and TV presenter, Took had collaborated with Merriman on the first seasons of Beyond Our Ken, and then co-wrote Round the Horne with Marty Feldman. He later employed Kenneth as a voice-over artist.

Michael Whittaker (b. 1938) A businessman – unusually in Kenneth’s circle – he is acknowledged in the diaries as ‘best of people and best of my friends’ because of his unfaltering loyalty and kindness in caring for Kenneth and Louie.

Louie Williams (1901–91) Kenneth’s mother and greatest fan was seemingly ever-present at his recordings, particularly in radio. She had given birth to Ken at 11 Bingfield Street, Islington, off the Caledonian Road, close to what is now the ‘Cally’ swimming pool.

Pat Williams (d. 1994) Kenneth’s sister – the full circumstances of her birth, could not be revealed during her lifetime. The allusion Kenneth made to the matter in his diaries did not appear in the published version.

Dennis Main Wilson (1924–97) The screenonline website, developed by the British Film Institute, describes the producer of Hancock’s Half Hour as ‘arguably the most important and influential of all comedy producers/directors in British radio and television’. He was responsible for getting The Goon Show on the air.

Barbara Windsor MBE (b. 1937) Even though it feels like it should be more, she appeared in only nine Carry On films, most notably in Carry On Camping where her defective bra and Kenneth’s immortal line ‘Matron, take them away!’ has proved the most used clip of the entire series.

Introduction by Russell Davies

‘On boarding the plane I was stuck next to this woman who asked: “They all call you Mister Williams…are you famous? Should I know you?” I told her “No – I’m nobody dear…just got a yard and a half in Who’s Who, that’s all”’

Diary, 13 April 1983

It is possible that we already know, or think we know, more about Kenneth Williams than we’ve ever learned about any previous British actor, classical or comical. Yet there is much more to be known, as this book will show. The public appetite for intimate details of his life, which has not diminished in the twenty years since his death, was created by him. Williams knew that his was a most unusual, possibly unique, personality type, and the glimpses he publicly offered of himself – those half-hinted confessions and protestations of celibacy – were not simply made as teases to keep his public interested. He himself wanted to know, I think, how people would regard him if they came to know more of the truth of who he was. To that end he would sneak out fragments of his authentic self. An opportunity was lost in his autobiography, Just Williams, the kind of carefully judged performance that could have been read on Radio 4 without expurgation. A franker book might have helped him, and us.

As Kenneth was aware, the world from which he disappeared in 1988 was already changing quickly. But he had never been ashamed of his own retro tastes – the Victorian poetry, the music from Buxtehude to Fauré but not much further – and with his health restored he might have found the energy to convince an increasingly shallow public of the worth of his ruminative pursuits. As an 82 year old in 2008, he could have held his place in the media firmament alongside surviving contemporaries like Sir David Attenborough and David Jacobs, his fellow-broadcasters, and his old friend Stanley Baxter, all born in 1926. (Indeed, Kenneth was almost exactly two months older than Her Majesty the Queen.)

Parts of his comedy world ought by now to be in ruins. The Carry On tradition was insular even in its own day, laden with funny foreigners and semi-inflatable, perpetually shocked, seaside-postcard women. But we’ve heard so much about the cast members and their off-screen interactions (which have even been dramatized in a National Theatre play, Terry Johnson’s Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick) that we now read the on-screen narrative twice as it goes along: once in its own silly terms, and once in terms of the ways the actors are surviving the material, and in some cases one another. By contrast, the campery of the Kenneth Horne radio performances seems almost uncorroded, and has lately become a mainstay of BBC7, the digital-radio archival network. And though the parlour game Just a Minute has now been running longer without Williams than with him, one can still hear younger panellists putting into practice the lessons he taught, under the guidance of David Hatch, about playing the game ‘outrageously’. The extent to which his career relied on the continuity of BBC work has perhaps been underestimated before, but it is thoroughly explored in these pages.

This book began, in a sense, at the end, with the death of Kenneth Williams, so it’s with that topic that we do begin. In my view, his death itself is not very mysterious – for debatability it’s not in the class of, say, Robert Maxwell’s demise – yet it does continue to be debated. Kenneth was much loved, in both a show business and a personal sense. Many of his friends and fans will forever argue hotly against the notion of his suicide, and in favour of misadventure. Meanwhile the open verdict which the Coroner actually returned stands as a perpetual invitation to reconsider the case.

But some important opinions have never been heard. Neither in 1988, nor in 1993 when my selection from his diaries was published, was any comment made by the friends named in Kenneth’s will: his agent, Michael Anderson; his companion on cultural travels, the businessman Michael Whittaker; his neighbour, Paul Richardson; or his godson, Robert Chidell. The world knew nothing of these gentlemen at the time, and they very reasonably preferred to keep it that way. Now, thanks to the persuasion of Wes Butters, they have spoken, enabling us to present the fullest picture of the circumstances of Kenneth’s death that posterity can hope for. It seemed unlikely that the pathologist employed on the case would add much detail to that picture, especially as he now works in New Zealand; but again, Wes’s initiative prevailed, and Dr Pease has contributed a remarkably vivid account of his involvement.

To understand the participation of the Chidell family in Kenneth’s life, it’s necessary to know something of the history of the actor John Vere, a friend of his from the 1950s and a fellow cast-member of Tony Hancock’s TV show. Robert Chidell is John Vere’s great-nephew, though John had been dead fifteen years by the time Robert was born. Vere committed suicide in 1961, at the age of only 45 (he ‘played older’, as they say in the profession). Although Kenneth found him cranky and annoying towards the end, in kinder times he’d been fond of Vere’s gentle presence. Isobel Chidell, Vere’s sister, tells his story, which runs as a kind of forecast of Kenneth’s; though Vere enjoyed a much more aristocratic professional grounding. Vere’s story stands for several others that were played out on the borders of Kenneth’s life: actors, directors and writers who started out with the same bright hopes, and gradually settled (or not) for something well short of stardom.

One family figure in the story who has remained seriously under-illuminated has been Kenneth’s sister, Pat. She, like Ken, was regarded with some wonderment by those who met her socially, chiefly on account of her unforgettable voice, a growling cigarette-fuelled basso that was very nearly male. At the time of the diaries’ publication Pat was still alive, and it would not have been fair to tell her full story, as revealed in one of the early diary volumes. The fact that Charlie Williams was not her real father explained much of the tension between daughter and Dad, and indeed between Pat and Kenneth. For the same reasons of tact, the subject was not raised, either, when Pat’s only sound interview was recorded, in 1995, for my Radio 4 programme I Am Your Actual Quality, in the series Radio Lives.

Even so, the interview, which was conducted by the BBC producer Simon Elmes, proved to be of the greatest possible interest, both as a portrait of the otherwise unknown Pat and as an evocation of the Williams family’s home life. By some mischance the BBC Sound Archive had lost their copy of this unique testimony, but I was relieved to find that my own archive had retained it, and I have since taken the opportunity to restore to the Archive’s shelves one of the more amazing voices to be found there. Pat Williams was already enduring her final illness when she gave her interview, and several others who recorded their impressions at that time have also left us: Isabel Dean, Betty Marsden, Derek Nimmo, Dennis Main Wilson, Barry Took and Eric Merriman. Only fragments of their testimony appeared in the original programme, and I am grateful to the BBC for allowing them to speak now at length, if only on the printed page. A brief outline of their careers and preoccupations is given in the ‘Cast of Characters’ listing.

Kenneth Williams kept his memorabilia neatly filed and classified. Had he put together his own scrapbook of his life, much of it would have looked very like the book you are holding. Taken together with the sound of his voice, which is still so readily and multifariously available, these pages bring him as nearly back to life as we can manage. We hope he would have understood our desire – even need – to do so.