There are few more reliable pleasures in life than settling back to watch a Carry On – the bouncy music; the lurid, cheap cinematography and shoddy editing (continuity mistakes abound); the bawdy Talbot Rothwell dialogue we know by heart: ‘I do not object to jiggery but I do take exception to pokery.’
Most of all, there’s the joy of the overqualified cast – Kenneth Williams worked with Orson Welles, Jim Dale was at the National with Olivier, and Charles Hawtrey was directed by Hitchcock – whom we greet as old and familiar friends.
I saw Carry On Abroad recently and was enchanted anew by the sequence where they board the holiday coach. Hawtrey, asked if he knows whether there’ll be any crumpet, says innocently, ‘Oh, I don’t think they’ll be giving us any tea.’
As Caroline Frost argues, in her loving tribute to what she calls ‘a golden moment in series is a distinct part of the appeal – the single takes, with errors left in; zero rehearsal; dire locations, fooling nobody. Frensham Ponds, Surrey, was the Spanish Main, Chobham Common was the Wild West, Camber Sands represented the Sahara, Beddgelert was the North-West Frontier, and Kew Gardens was a jungle clearing. Sometimes they ventured as far as Windsor or Maidenhead.
