Robin Askwith will be back at the Darlington Film Club next month for a special screening of one of his many classic movies, followed by the latest incarnation of the legendary one man show!
Entitled "Live, Dangerous and Uncut"…ahem…Robin will be present for a screening of the 1970 film Cool It, Carol. Following the film, the man himself will take to the stage with hilarious anecdotes from his impressively diverse 50 year career on stage and screen.
Robin entered the film industry in 1968 making his debut in Lindsay Anderson's If... He then went onto work with the likes of Pier Paulo Pasolini, Franco Zeffirelli, Pete Walker, Franklin Schaffer, Clive Donner, Dick Clement and Antony Balch, before he made the controversially successful Confessions of... series of films.
At the height of his career Robin worked with the likes of Nigel Davenport, Pamela Stephenson, Rula Lenska, Leonard Rossiter, Alan Lake and Darth Vader! Come and hear the stories first hand by the cheeky chappie himself as he takes us on a history of his theatre, film and TV career. Dubbed the King of Elstree Studios in the 1970s, Robin was asked back there last year with his sell-out one man show, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the studios.
Recently he has been seen in Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Benidorm and Casualty, but it is as Timmy Lea in the Confessions of... films that he is best remembered.
Robin Askwith: Live, Dangerous and Uncut is at the Darlington Film Club @ The Forum at 7pm on 1st April (no joke!) Tickets cost £10 and you can buy yours here.
You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram
This evening Talking Pictures TV are showing yet another comedy classic from the golden age of British film comedy. Possibly the closest any other film got to being an official part of the Carry On team without actually gaining the Carry On title, Bless This House was yet another quickly made, cheaply made picture from Peter Rogers Productions. A big screen version of the hit Thames Television domestic sitcom, bringing Bless This House to the cinema was just another part of the very 1970s trend of transferring TV comedy favourites to film. This had varying results with some performing better than others. I think we can agree Bless This House is probably one of the most successful.
Part of its success is down to the Carry On-like quality the film has, mainly down to the personnel employed both in front of and behind the camera. Bless This House remains a hugely popular film, 47 years after it was first released. It's easy going, has bags of charm, remains completely light, frothy, undemanding and innocent and in modern, more cynical times its special brand of escapism is very appealing. Nothing really happens across its 80 odd minutes and basically writer Dave Freeman, who would go on to pen Carry On Behind and Columbus, stitches together three potential small screen half hours into one film.
There's the traditional suburban new neighbours move in and don't get on with those around them strand. So what you say? Well when the main opponents are Sid James and an extremely pompous pre-Terry and June Terry Scott, you have comedy magic. Then there's the farcical wedding strand which sees the offspring of Sid and Terry (Robin Askwith and Carol Hawkins) hitch up and get hitched. Of course nothing goes to plan but all's well in the end. In between all this there are several small plots of little consequence such as Sally Geeson's naive 1970s environmental activism, Diana Coupland and Patsy Rowlands hoarding junk for a future antiques business and best of all, Sid and best mate Peter Butterworth attempting to make their own alcohol in the garden shed, with startling results!
In the hands of lesser actors, all of this would have fallen flat and this little film would be a very distant memory. As with the main Carry On series, the secret of this films' success is the casting. The film is mainly made up of instantly recognisable Carry On faces with only leading lady Diana Coupland failing to Carry On elsewhere (a great pity I think I as you can read here: Should Diana Coupland have carried on? Leading team members Sid James, Peter Butterworth and Patsy Rowlands are joined by Carry On supporting players Terry Scott, June Whitfield, Marianne Stone, Bill Maynard, Patricia Franklin, Julian Orchard, Molly Weir, Wendy Richard and Johnny Briggs. Phew! It seems to modern viewers that Peter Rogers basically arranged for the cast of the early 1970s Carry Ons to decamp to suburban Windsor for six weeks. Recent Carry On starlets Carol Hawkins and Sally Geeson also grab leading roles while rising star Robin Askwith, soon to appear in Carry On Girls and then the Confessions series, plays Sid's son Mike. Quite an ensemble!
Of course several of these actors transferred across from the television version of Bless This House. Alongside Sid, Sally Geeson played daughter Sally in all 65 episodes of the sitcom alongside Diana Coupland. Patsy Rowlands too was a semi-regular in the sitcom as neighbour Betty. However the actors playing Trevor and Mike did not appear in the film. I don't really know why Anthony Jackson and Robin Stewart were replaced by Peter Butterworth and Robin Askwith but I can't fault either of the actors who stepped into the film. To complicate matters further, the likes of June Whitfield and Marianne Stone also appeared in the television series, albeit in very different roles!
Many of the core Carry On crew also appeared behind the camera on Bless This House. Pinewood stalwart Alan Hume was in charge of photography, Eric Rogers did the music while even the hair and make up team moved across in the familiar guise of Stella Rivers and Geoff Rodway. It really was a team effort and a film family and us fans take great comfort from seeing all these names scrolling across the screen once again.
So make a date to catch up with your favourite comedy character actors in an undemanding hour and half of slapstick, gentle humour and family fun.
Bless This House is on Talking Pictures TV tonight at 7.10pm. Find out more here: https://talkingpicturestv.co.uk
You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram
More sad news today for fans of the best of British film and television comedy. The veteran actor George A Cooper has very sadly passed away at the grand old age of 93. George was possibly best known for his regular role as caretaker Mr Griffiths in the long running BBC children's television series Grange Hill. However he enjoyed a career dating back until the 1940s and was still acting regularly until the mid 1990s.
Although George was never in a Carry On, he did work for Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas on another big screen comedy adventure. In 1972 George A Cooper took on a main supporting role in the classic film version of the Sid James sitcom Bless This House. As slavedriver cafe owner Mr Wilson, George shares several scenes with the likes of Robin Askwith, Wendy Richard and Carol Hawkins before engaging in some pure farce when a food fight breaks out between himself, Sid and Terry Scott! Wonderful stuff.
Born in Leeds in March 1925, George appeared in countless films during his career including the role of a Farmer in the Frankie Howerd comedy Jumping For Joy in 1956 and a small role in the Peggy Mount classic Sailor Beware! the same year. He was in A Night To Remember, the Kenneth More Titanic drama, played Doug Savage in Hell is a City (1960) and appeared as Mr Fitzpatrick in Tom Jones in 1963, in a cast which also featured Rosalind Knight and Patsy Rowlands. Another brief but memorable comedy role came opposite Harry H Corbett in the 1964 film The Bargee. George played a canal official. Later films included Ferry Cross the Mersey as Mr Lumsden, the Landlord in Dracula Has Risen from the Grave and Blacket in The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (both 1970).
George A Cooper had played Geoffrey Fisher, the stern father of Billy Liar in the original West End stage version of the play in 1960 and also featured in a television version in the early 1970s. However it was the small screen which beckoned for most of George's career. As well as his regular role in Grange Hill, Cooper also enjoyed success in none other than Coronation Street. He played the character of Willie Piggott on and off between 1964 and 1971. Piggott owned a butcher's shop on Rosamund Street and was quite an unscrupulous character by all accounts. Over his 24 appearances, Piggott tried to bribe Ken Barlow, tussled with Len Fairclough and took a shine to Elsie Tanner! Cooper also played a role in the Corrie comedy spinoff Pardon The Expression in 1966, working with Betty Driver and Arthur Lowe.
Like many actors of his generation, George A Cooper appeared in pretty much all the classic television dramas and comedy shows of the era. There were one off parts in Danger Man, The Avengers, The Saint, Z Cars, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Dixon of Dock Green and Public Eye. Always with an eye for comedy, George also grabbed memorable supporting roles in a host of classic sitcoms. He worked with Sid James on Bless This House, Terry Scott and June Whitfield in Terry and June, Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques in Sykes as well as Rising Damp and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.
George A Cooper pretty much retired from acting in 1995. He played Griffiths in Grange Hill for seven years until 1992 and made final appearances on television in Heartbeat in 1993 and Casualty two years later. He was married to Anne Shirley Jones from 1955 until her death in 2000. George passed away on 16 November, in Petersfield, Hampshire at the age of 93. He is survived by his son, Adam.
You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and on Instagram
Now here's a thing. The internet has struck again and I've stumbled on this little curio from way back in 1973. Produced by John Worth, this record entitled "Listen" appears to have been made by none other than Carol Hawkins.
Is that the Carol Hawkins? She of Please Sir! and Carry On fame? Well I have no confirmation of that and have never heard Carol mention releasing a record in any of the interviews she's ever given. 1973 would have seen Carol at the height of her success with the release of big cinema hits such as Please Sir!, Bless This House and Carry On Abroad while on the small screen she had been appearing as Sharon in The Fenn Street Gang.
On further investigation, the actual single is available to hear on YouTube, so you can check that out for yourself to see what you think. The person who has uploaded it to the net certainly seems to think it is Carol, and that she recorded in the July of '73.
You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan on Facebook and on Instagram
Now here's a lovely thing. Browsing the net the other day I came upon Janet Brown's This Is Your Life tribute show from way back in 1980. To those of a certain vintage, Janet will be best remembered as an impressionist and comedienne, most famous for her impression of Mrs Thatcher, her own shows on television and working with Mike Yarwood.
To us Carry On fans, she is also known as the wife of the late, great Peter Butterworth. Janet was married to Peter from 1947 until his sad, early death in January 1979. Together they had two children, Tyler, still an actor to this day and very much his father's son, and Emma. As well as a long and happy marriage, Peter and Janet also starred together in many television shows during the 1950s, especially on children's television.
Janet's This Is Your Life is a really good watch, made even more poignant by the still recent loss of Peter. This is touched upon several times by host Eamonn Andrews and it's clear just how much love and affection there was for Butterworth. To Janet's credit, she threw herself into work in the early 1980s after taking time out to raise their children. Mostly known to us as Peter's wife it's great to see her in the spotlight for a change, although bittersweet that Peter wasn't sitting beside his wife, beaming with pride.
Janet would continue to make regular appearances on television and on stage well into her 80s. Her last film appearance came in 2010 while her last stage appearance was three years earlier, as Old Lady Squeamish in the West End production of The Country Wife at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Janet lived in Hove in her later years and was still very active until her death at the age of 87 in 2011. Sadly, her daughter Emma predeceased her, passing away at the age of just 34 in 1996. Tyler is now married, to the actress Janet Dibley and together they have two sons.
Although Janet never did make a Carry On, you may remember she popped up for a supporting role as Sid's departing neighbour Annie in the 1972 film Bless This House, a Carry On in all but name.
However, for many of us she will always be remembered for this:
You can follow
me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan on Facebook and on Instagram
This
is part of an occasional series of blogs in which I will look at the careers
of each of the main Carry On team players once they left the series.
Some would go on to appear in many other productions over the years
while others would sadly not be so fortunate. Today I am looking at the later career of Sidney James.
Sid was one of the mainstays of not just the Carry On films, but of British comedy for a generation. His film career in Britain dated back to 1946 and from the late 1950s onwards, thanks to his association with Tony Hancock, Sid became a bankable and dependable star of many films and television series. In late 1959 he joined the team for his first film in the series, playing Sergeant Frank Wilkins in Carry On Constable. Over the next fourteen years he would lead the pack in nineteen Carry On feature films, several television specials and an eighteen month sell out run in Carry On London at the Victoria Palace.
Sid had an incredible work ethic, he was at his happiest when rushing from job to lucrative job. The speed at which the Carry Ons were filmed always suited him as it meant he could fit many other roles in around them. By the mid-1970s he was at the peak of his powers, a massive success on television, on stage and in films. So why was 1974's Carry On Dick his last performance in a Carry On film? Sadly we all know the answer to that one. On 26 April 1976 Sid sadly died of a massive heart attack during a performance of the farce The Mating Game at the Sunderland Empire. His death at the relatively young age of 62 marked the end of an era.
So what work did Sid complete during that short period from the filming of Dick in the spring of '74 and his sad death only two years later?
I don't believe the role of Dick Turpin/Rev Flasher was ever meant to be Sid's Carry On swansong. Only one more Carry On film was made during his lifetime as he had passed away just before England went into production in May 1976. The role of lusty butcher Fred Ramsden in Carry On Behind was written by Dave Freeman with Sid in mind. However Sidney was off touring with one of his many popular stage farces and could not commit to the six weeks' annual fun at Pinewood Studios. While Windsor Davies does an admirable job in the role, Behind does miss Sid's presence.
Sid did make Carry On appearances following the completion of Carry On Dick. During the filming of Dick and right up until early 1975, Sid was joining Barbara, Bernard, Peter, Jack and Kenneth Connor to play to packed houses in the revue Carry On London. The punishing twice nightly schedule was further impacted by daily filming at Pinewood for many of the cast. Sid also appeared in four episodes of the ATV series Carry On Laughing, filmed in late 1974 and early 1975 for broadcast in 1975. All Sid's episodes fitted into the first series and brought him into contact with longtime leading ladies Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques for the very last time.
Sid was also busy in another small screen series, albeit a much more successful one than Carry On Laughing. He continued to make a series of Bless This House for Thames Television each year up until his death in 1976. Indeed the final episodes of the last series were broadcast after Sid had passed away. The sitcom was still hugely popular with the public and doing well in the ratings, with a further series of episodes planned for 1977. Sadly that series would not come to fruition due to the loss of its star.
Away from film and television, Sid was also packing in a relentless and pretty gruelling touring schedule. His main theatre work was the Sam Cree farce The Mating Game, directed by Jack Douglas' brother Bill Roberton and co-starring his fellow South African Olga Lowe. The production toured all over the country, a big success at many provincial theatres. Sid also took productions abroad, proving equally successful in countries like Australia.
Sadly this frantic work schedule eventually caught up with Sid James. Amid reports that he was about to cut down on working commitments, James took his final bow on stage in Sunderland in April 1976. Thankfully his legacy lives on and his popularity, together with that of his countless films and television appearances, means there is scarcely a day goes by without the sound of that familiar Sid laugh or the sight of that wonderfully expressive crinkly face. He was a truth original.
You can follow me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan and also Facebook
It's not every day you end
up on the phone to Malta for an hour and a half with the actor Robin Askwith.
Robin has been in my life for many years, thanks to his incredibly prolific and
diverse acting career across film, television and theatre. Robin's career has
come to be dominated by the legendary Confessions series of comedy films,
however there is an awful lot more to the man than that.
Always one to speak his
mind, something that's really rather refreshing these days, Robin began our
chat by discussing the modern trend of social media. Due to the growing
popularity of his one man show performances, Robin is tentatively thinking
about developing more of a following on Twitter, despite being wary about the
internet. I think Twitter would be a much better place for a bit of Askwith so
I hope he, for the want of a better expression, follows through.
Robin and I spoke at some length so I've taken the decision to split this interview into two blogs. Today, we'll start off with some of Robin's early film appearances as well as his work for Peter Rogers Productions, which brought him into contact with the likes of Sid James, Carol Hawkins, June Whitfield and Margaret Nolan.
I've stitched the interview together from my many pages of notes
- as Robin himself admits, he doesn't like formal question and answers, he
prefers his answers to drive the questions! Here's how we got on:
One of your earliest
film roles was that of Keating in If. It's a really iconic movie – what was it
like to be a part of?
If was my first film part.
I'd done some bits and pieces before that, like television commercials, but it
was the big one. It's actually 50 years next year since we made that film and
I'll be celebrating that with a tour I'm doing in 2018. It was an extraordinary
film to get as my first role on the big screen. As you know I went to quite a
posh public school and I took part in lots of school plays. The director of If,
Lindsay Anderson, came to see one of the plays and I had a mishap with the
false nose I was wearing. I made a joke of it and was told by the school that
they wouldn't have me in another production. Lindsay loved it though and it was
that that got me the film.
Originally I was up for the
part Richard Warwick played but they changed the ages of the characters and I
ended up playing Keating, which was great as I had more time to learn about the
process of filming. I remember having many, many auditions with the casting
director, a lady called Miriam Brickman. Lindsay Anderson became a good friend
though and I worked for him again in the film Britannia Hospital, playing the
same character but in a larger role. He had tried to get me to do a couple of
parts on stage at the Royal Court but I was too busy filming in the end.
Lindsay Anderson was a great director, mainly in the theatre, but he was a
guiding force for me in my early career.
You worked for the
Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini in his rather extraordinary version
of The Canterbury Tales in 1972. What are your memories of that filming
experience?
That part happened by
accident. I had worked with one or two Italian film directors by that stage and
I was a bit wary of them, not the best experiences. My girlfriend at the time
was the actress Cheryl Hall (who eventually started in Citizen Smith and married
its star Robert Lindsay). Cheryl was going for an audition with the Italian
director, Pier Paolo Pasolini at the Hyde Park Hotel so I went along with her.
It was the days of the tight purple trousers, tight t-shirts and love beads.
The first thing Pasolini actually said to me was in English - he looked me up
and down and said "You look like you use your c*ck a lot". I replied
by getting it out and saying "does it look like it?!". He loved it, I
was cast in the film and we remained friends until his sad death.
The same year you
appeared with many of the Carry On team in the film version of Bless This
House. Was that a fun film to do and did you enjoy working with Sid James?
Bless This House is still
such a popular film. Here in Gozo where I live, friends who are parents are
always telling their kids that I'm a famous film star and they ask what I've
been in - the only film I made that kids can really watch is probably Bless
This House and they love it. It's such an English film and I don't know what
all these Southern Europeans love about it but they go mad for it. A lot of the
fan mail I get these days is about Bless This House and I get sent photos of me
from the film. It's incredible, but I guess it's down to the terrific cast in
the film and the fun of it all.
Sid was great to work with,
I really respected him and all the work he'd done. He'd made some terrific
films, worked on the BBC series Taxi, which I loved and all the radio with Tony
Hancock. There was a great deal of respect for Sid and he really was the
leading man of the Carry Ons. He spotted me and took to me, he liked what I was
doing and it was great to work with him. I did also appear in a one off episode
of the series Bless This House, and I was originally considered for the part of
Sid's son Mike. It went to Robin Stewart in the end but I think Sid wanted me
for the part.
I loved making the film.
There was one sequence in particular, when I'm cooking in the cafe and we did
the whole thing in one take - I was just allowed to go for it and it was all
really spontaneous. The result was fantastic and Sid James told me it was
genuinely the funniest thing he'd seen since the comic Charlie Cairoli. Sadly
there was something wrong with the negative from the original take so we had to
shoot it again. I was happy with it but it didn't have the edge of the original
version. I remember Alan Hume, who was the Director of Photography, being such
a giggler. We used to have to go again because he'd broken up laughing at what
we were all doing. I think it was that film that made me realise I could do
comedy. Until then I had been doing more straight stuff, more realistic. It was
Sid's fault really as he kept telling me to go bigger and over react more in
performance! And from that film I got Carry On Girls.
One of your main
co-stars in the Bless This House film was Carol Hawkins. I think you went to
drama school with her too? What was it like to work with Carol?
I was very friendly with
Carol, we got on really well. My agent at the time was a lady called Hazel
Malone and her sister ran the Corona Academy, a school which trained young
actors, producing the likes of Judy and Sally Geeson, Susan George, Richard
O'Sullivan and Dennis Waterman. I had already had quite a serious schooling but
I went along to Corona because it was just a great place to be. Also, my school
had been a boys' school and Corona had girls! I had already made a few films
and done some television at this stage but I got to know Carol before her
career got going. We acted together there in a production of Private Lives I
remember.
Carol was responsible for
drawing Gerald Thomas' attention towards me when he was casting the film of
Bless This House. She had been working on Carry On Abroad with Sally Geeson
just before and both Carol and Sally went on to do the Bless This House film
straight after. Robin Stewart, who was playing Mike Abbott in the television
series, was not going to appear in the film version and Gerald was looking
around for a young actor. Carol suggested me. Gerald had no way of seeing what
I had done as once one of the films I'd been in had been on in the cinema, it
was gone. There were no DVDs in 1972 or even VHS. For instance, just before
this I'd done a series for Yorkshire TV called On The House, with Kenneth
Connor and Derek Griffiths. Once it was shown it was gone so it didn't really
help. So Carol persuaded him to see me. I had Sid, Carol and Sally in my corner
and I didn't have to read for the part. I remember as I arrived to meet Gerald,
my main rival for the role, Christopher Timothy, was just leaving. He's a great
actor but he was ten years older than me and not known for comedy. Gerald was a
tremendous man and great to work with.
In 1973 you played June
Whitfield's son in Carry On Girls. You shared a memorable scene on Brighton
beach with the lovely Maggie Nolan. Do you have fond memories of filming Girls
and working with Maggie?
Carry On Girls was great
fun. Originally my part of the photographer had been a wordless role but they
built it up for me. I remember Barbara Windsor kept saying "'ere, that
Askwith, his part's getting bigger and bigger!" (At this point I
compliment Robin on his absolutely stunning Dame Barbara impersonation).
June Whitfield was fantastic to work with, she called me "her son"
off screen as well as on. She was (and is) a lovely lady and really great. We'd
done something before Girls came along and many years later I appeared in panto
with her.
I remember at one stage I
used to stay in a great hotel down in Wimbledon run by a man called Ray Slade.
June and I had neighbouring suites in the hotel and he used to say he'd know
what was going on in the June Whitfield suite and he'd always know what
was going on in the Robin Askwith suite! At the time I had a girlfriend who
kept budgies and once she brought them to the suite. We had a lot of fun joking
about how I had three birds in my suite.
I have fond memories of
working with Maggie Nolan, she was great. That scene on the beach at Brighton
was good to do but I was a total professional. I remember she was very
political and at the time I think she was married to Tom Kempinski? She tried
to sign me up to the Workers' Revolutionary Party but I declined! (I mention
the infamous fight sequence in the film between Nolan and Barbara Windsor and
tell Robin that Maggie was actually pregnant at the time). I didn't know
she was pregnant but now you mention it I do recall she was a bit reticent
about doing that scene. In the end I think they both really went for it though.
Gerald Thomas wanted me to do more Carry Ons but of course I ended up going off
to do the Confessions films, which in a way saw the eventual decline of the
Carry Ons. I don't think he ever forgave me for that, which is sad. I got on
very well with Gerald for a long time and used to go and see him at his house
in Burnham.
One of your regular
co-stars in the Confessions comedies was the legendary Liz Fraser. What was she
like to work with?
Liz is a great actress and
had made a great many wonderful films. She did the first Confessions film
because she was a great friend of Linda Hayden. I remember she was fun to work
with, particularly in Driving Instructor when we had that scene in the bath. She
was very down to earth and pretty much up for anything. She played the scenes
really well and just got on with it.
I hope you have enjoyed the first part of my interview with Robin. Watch out for Part 2 coming up tomorrow when we delve further into the world of the Confessions films, before coming up to date with Coronation Street, a reunion with Judy Matheson and Robin's association with the Misty Moon Film Society.
Finally, a massive thank
you to Stuart at Misty Moon for helping to set up the interview!
You can follow
me on Twitter @CarryOnJoan on Facebook and on Instagram
