The Kenneth Williams Story: A Reputations Special

0:00:01 > 0:00:08- IN VARIETY OF VOICES: - 'Hello. Good evening to you, sir. I say! I like your yachting blazer!

0:00:08 > 0:00:12'Did you know, I'm Britain's secret weapon?'

0:00:12 > 0:00:20- You don't know what agony it's been, yearning for you - yearning to give you my all.- I don't want your all.

0:00:20 > 0:00:25- I don't even want a little bit. - I will not be put off.- Matron!

0:00:25 > 0:00:27No! Please! Oh, your hand!

0:00:27 > 0:00:33'I could do something wild with a couple of creepers up his trellis.

0:00:33 > 0:00:36'Here we are, Autumn's come round...'

0:00:36 > 0:00:40- NICHOLAS PARSONS: - 'Kenneth, restrain yourself.- Ohh!

0:00:40 > 0:00:43'I'm young! I'm virile!

0:00:43 > 0:00:45'I'm butch!'

0:00:45 > 0:00:53Kenneth Williams' performances on radio, television and film made him one of the best-loved of comedians.

0:00:53 > 0:00:56Good evening...

0:00:56 > 0:01:01Kenneth was the funniest man I think I've ever met.

0:01:03 > 0:01:07- What do you want?- I'm your room-mate. - Oh, no!

0:01:07 > 0:01:11- Stop messing about!- To many people,

0:01:11 > 0:01:16and to Kenneth Williams himself, comedy was only part of his appeal.

0:01:16 > 0:01:23I'm a cult figure. I'm an enormous cult. I'm one of the biggest cults you'll get round here.

0:01:23 > 0:01:26Kenneth was, in the best sense,

0:01:26 > 0:01:29a brilliant show-off.

0:01:29 > 0:01:33I look in the mirror and think, "Ohh..."

0:01:33 > 0:01:36"What a dish," I think.

0:01:36 > 0:01:39He was a melancholic...

0:01:39 > 0:01:42depressed man, with...

0:01:42 > 0:01:46shot through with moments of... delight.

0:01:46 > 0:01:52He was a very angry, unhappy, lonely man who, out of that,

0:01:52 > 0:01:54found a tremendous kind of comedy.

0:01:54 > 0:01:59'They think I'm the most diverting, brilliant, energetic creature

0:01:59 > 0:02:04- 'that ever walked across a stage.' - AUDIENCE LAUGHS

0:02:04 > 0:02:08He was a man with so many facets, so many characters.

0:02:08 > 0:02:15He wanted you to see them all, at once, immediately, now. Twelve of them, one after the other.

0:02:15 > 0:02:22He would... If one said, "Would the real Kenneth Williams stand up?" I don't think he could.

0:02:22 > 0:02:27I don't think there really was such a person,

0:02:27 > 0:02:29or if there was...

0:02:29 > 0:02:33I think he kept that Kenneth Williams

0:02:33 > 0:02:36behind closed doors.

0:02:36 > 0:02:40Behind closed doors for 40 years, he kept a diary.

0:02:40 > 0:02:45When it was published after his death, it revealed the gap

0:02:45 > 0:02:51between the public performer and the intense and solitary private man.

0:02:51 > 0:02:53He had a feeling of exclusion

0:02:53 > 0:02:56from the common pursuits of others.

0:02:56 > 0:03:01It must have been difficult for him to have been him, I think.

0:03:01 > 0:03:09Kenneth Williams' solution to the problem of being him was a great success for a very long time.

0:03:09 > 0:03:15He invented a comic persona that brought him the applause of an admiring public,

0:03:15 > 0:03:21but his dependency on the character he created ultimately cost him dear.

0:03:21 > 0:03:26From childhood, Kenneth Williams had a sense that he didn't belong.

0:03:26 > 0:03:34His upper-class vowels were at odds with his origins in a working-class area of London near King's Cross

0:03:34 > 0:03:39where he was born in a one-room flat in 1926.

0:03:39 > 0:03:47The family later moved to the poorer fringes of Bloomsbury when Kenneth's father Charlie, a hairdresser,

0:03:47 > 0:03:51started a business which still trades today.

0:03:51 > 0:03:58Kenneth and his father never got on. He was a disappointment to Charlie, who wanted a son as tough as he was,

0:03:58 > 0:04:05as Kenneth's sister Pat revealed in a radio interview shortly before her death.

0:04:05 > 0:04:12Nobody got on with Charlie Williams. He was a real, old-fashioned, Victorian bully.

0:04:12 > 0:04:14Ken used to just look at him

0:04:14 > 0:04:18with utter contempt.

0:04:18 > 0:04:23A man once came into the shop. "Oh, I'd like a blow wave."

0:04:23 > 0:04:28He said, "You'll get no blow waves from me. Are you a bloomin' iron?

0:04:28 > 0:04:33"Iron 'oof? No irons in my shop. Get out."

0:04:33 > 0:04:38From his earliest days, all his love was focused on his mother Louie.

0:04:38 > 0:04:42The family strength was between Kenneth and his mother.

0:04:42 > 0:04:47He said in his diary, "I will never love anyone as much as I love her."

0:04:47 > 0:04:52He realised there would be no other important relationship in his life.

0:04:52 > 0:04:56'I do love Louie. She's the only person I've ever loved.

0:04:56 > 0:05:01'By love, I mean caring so much that it's altruistic,

0:05:01 > 0:05:06'feeling her presence when she's not physically there, and missing her.'

0:05:06 > 0:05:09Louie was very fussy.

0:05:09 > 0:05:12If there was any mess on the floor,

0:05:12 > 0:05:16"Look at this mess. Simply disgusting."

0:05:16 > 0:05:24And Kenny would follow round after her with a bit of rag. "Look at dis mess. Simply disdusting."

0:05:24 > 0:05:32There was another reason why Kenneth was Louie's favourite - a reason that remained a family secret.

0:05:32 > 0:05:38Pat was illegitimate, conceived when Louie was engaged to a man who later abandoned her.

0:05:38 > 0:05:46Three years later, Charlie married her. But it wasn't a love match. That came when Kenneth was born.

0:05:46 > 0:05:48Ken was her idol.

0:05:48 > 0:05:53She idolised him, ever since he was a baby.

0:05:53 > 0:05:56I suppose, because he was...

0:05:56 > 0:05:58legitimate.

0:05:58 > 0:06:01He was her...her baby boy.

0:06:01 > 0:06:05And everything was for Kenny.

0:06:05 > 0:06:09I suppose Pat felt that she didn't belong any more.

0:06:09 > 0:06:16Dad would come home with his present, you see? "Present for you, son. Here you are."

0:06:16 > 0:06:21I'd go, "Oh, good. Where's mine?" "You ain't got no present.

0:06:21 > 0:06:23"It's for the boy."

0:06:23 > 0:06:26And Ken would open this parcel.

0:06:26 > 0:06:28Pair of boxing gloves.

0:06:28 > 0:06:34And he'd hold them out. "What am I supposed to do with these?"

0:06:34 > 0:06:38"Put them on your bleedin' fists and have a fight."

0:06:38 > 0:06:41"No, thank you."

0:06:41 > 0:06:46And he'd just drop them in my father's lap and walk out the room.

0:06:46 > 0:06:50Kenneth's defiance of his father could only go so far.

0:06:50 > 0:06:58He starred as Princess Angelica in a school play. Charlie tried to push his son in a different direction.

0:06:58 > 0:07:01He said to me, "Acting's rubbish.

0:07:01 > 0:07:04"You've got to have a trade, boy. A trade."

0:07:04 > 0:07:08And so Kenneth left school at 14

0:07:08 > 0:07:13to pursue a career his father approved of - cartography.

0:07:13 > 0:07:17His apprenticeship was cut short during the Blitz

0:07:17 > 0:07:22when he was evacuated to Bicester, to the home of a bachelor vet.

0:07:22 > 0:07:29Kenneth had his first taste of educated middle-class life, and he loved it.

0:07:29 > 0:07:34The house was spacious, to me. I come from very cramped quarters.

0:07:34 > 0:07:42Four-poster beds, candelabras to light your way to bed, a room full of books. His library was enormous.

0:07:42 > 0:07:49Kenneth immersed himself in a whole new lifestyle, and returned to London with a new accent.

0:07:49 > 0:07:54I think that's where he got the posh voice and all that.

0:07:54 > 0:08:00I think he mixed with people that were...well-heeled.

0:08:00 > 0:08:06- Bicester had a lasting impact on him in other ways. - When he was evacuated,

0:08:06 > 0:08:12he was on the bus somewhere and an older man got on and put his hand on his knee.

0:08:12 > 0:08:16I think it went further than that.

0:08:16 > 0:08:24Kenneth said when the guy got off the bus it was possibly the happiest day of his life so far. And why not?

0:08:24 > 0:08:31In 1944, Williams was drafted into the army and, a year later, sent to the Far East to fight the Japanese.

0:08:31 > 0:08:36- An unlikely soldier. - I'd always had my own room.

0:08:36 > 0:08:39When we were evacuated, my own room.

0:08:39 > 0:08:47In this barrack room, I used to take the trousers down, put the pyjama bottoms on, and then do the rest.

0:08:47 > 0:08:52They rumbled it. "Hoi! Frightened of showing us your willy?"

0:08:52 > 0:08:56ROARS OF LAUGHTER

0:08:56 > 0:09:02And after that... You know, I became quite uninhibited after that.

0:09:02 > 0:09:07Clearly not cut out to be a soldier, he shone off the training ground.

0:09:07 > 0:09:12There was about 20 of us with double bunks. When the lights went out,

0:09:12 > 0:09:16that's when Kenneth started his little act.

0:09:16 > 0:09:23He used to get up with a torch and shine it on himself and recite silly poems and stories.

0:09:23 > 0:09:30I don't know where he got them from. Some were from his real life. He had us in fits.

0:09:30 > 0:09:35If the chance came, he would take somebody off straight away.

0:09:35 > 0:09:40"For heaven's sake, man! Pull the stomach round to the front!"

0:09:40 > 0:09:43Kenneth was a natural performer,

0:09:43 > 0:09:48a perfect recruit for a new unit - Combined Services Entertainment.

0:09:50 > 0:09:52Halt!

0:09:56 > 0:10:01Military life met show business to entertain the troops.

0:10:04 > 0:10:09Fellow members of the unit included comedian Stanley Baxter

0:10:09 > 0:10:15- and film director John Schlesinger, then a conjurer.- CSE, for all of us,

0:10:15 > 0:10:22was our first kind of encounter, as it were, with being professional performers.

0:10:22 > 0:10:25And I think that Kenneth was...

0:10:25 > 0:10:29a genuine original. I remember the voices,

0:10:29 > 0:10:32I think, from day one.

0:10:32 > 0:10:39- AS CHURCHILL: - "We shall fight on the beaches, on the landing grounds." I had a cigar.

0:10:39 > 0:10:43For many, CSE was a liberating experience,

0:10:43 > 0:10:48a place where some performers could acknowledge their homosexuality.

0:10:51 > 0:10:57There were so many like-minded people in an entertainments unit

0:10:57 > 0:11:01that it was... something of a revelation.

0:11:01 > 0:11:04Kenneth had begun to keep a diary.

0:11:04 > 0:11:09It offers a revealing glimpse of his growing unease with his sexuality.

0:11:09 > 0:11:12"Having a very vivid social life.

0:11:12 > 0:11:17"Met Peter. Very camp conversation. P was looking for talent.

0:11:17 > 0:11:21"Malaya C..." Malaya Club. "..getting quite gay."

0:11:21 > 0:11:26I think that's the homosexual meaning of "gay" being used in 1947,

0:11:26 > 0:11:32although the show that Kenneth was in was Going Gay, so you can never tell.

0:11:32 > 0:11:37This happens a lot, this phraseology. "No traditional worries."

0:11:37 > 0:11:42I think that means, "No sexual contact."

0:11:42 > 0:11:45He was quite...troubled...

0:11:45 > 0:11:47by...

0:11:47 > 0:11:50his sexuality.

0:11:50 > 0:11:55Some of us had much greater ability to come to terms with it, I think,

0:11:55 > 0:11:57but he didn't.

0:11:59 > 0:12:04Williams returned to London in 1947 determined to go on the stage,

0:12:04 > 0:12:08but not as a comic or entertainer. His ambition

0:12:08 > 0:12:11was to be a serious actor.

0:12:11 > 0:12:14For five years he learnt his trade

0:12:14 > 0:12:21in weekly repertory companies but became frustrated by what he saw as a lack of vision in the theatre.

0:12:21 > 0:12:24He wanted to run a theatre company.

0:12:24 > 0:12:29His approach to theatre in those early years was curious.

0:12:29 > 0:12:33It was almost socialistic, you would say.

0:12:33 > 0:12:35He wanted a communal theatre,

0:12:35 > 0:12:40an egalitarian theatre where everybody was on the same level.

0:12:40 > 0:12:45There was a bit of JB Priestley in this - The Good Companions.

0:12:45 > 0:12:51Attempts to find financial backing failed and the group disbanded.

0:12:51 > 0:12:55Disappointed, Kenneth went back to live with his parents

0:12:55 > 0:12:59and took refuge in his other passion, educating himself.

0:12:59 > 0:13:02He was a very serious thinker.

0:13:02 > 0:13:05He was very, very well informed

0:13:05 > 0:13:07because he read a lot.

0:13:07 > 0:13:11He was always interested in literature, in history,

0:13:11 > 0:13:16and had this amazing memory.

0:13:16 > 0:13:24Kenneth claimed that every day of his life he learnt four new words from the dictionary, and a new poem.

0:13:24 > 0:13:30But his theatrical and bookish pursuits only widened the rift between him and his father.

0:13:30 > 0:13:33The father would say, "Who are you?"

0:13:33 > 0:13:39"I've come to see Kenny." "Kenneth! One of your poncy friends 'ere!"

0:13:39 > 0:13:43I-I thought it was a goat. I didn't know.

0:13:43 > 0:13:45Mistake...

0:13:45 > 0:13:48He won roles in TV dramas and films,

0:13:48 > 0:13:53although fight scenes were never quite his style.

0:13:54 > 0:14:00But what he really wanted was success on the stage. His big break

0:14:00 > 0:14:07finally came in 1954 when he was cast as the Dauphin in a West End production

0:14:07 > 0:14:09of George Bernard Shaw's St Joan.

0:14:09 > 0:14:16He was certainly the best Dauphin I have ever seen in many productions of St Joan.

0:14:16 > 0:14:21He was, um... rigorously inside the role.

0:14:21 > 0:14:25Mind you, there was a lot of the Dauphin in Kenneth.

0:14:25 > 0:14:28But it was fully thought through.

0:14:28 > 0:14:35St Joan was a critical triumph for Williams and marked the turning point in his career,

0:14:35 > 0:14:37but not in the way he imagined.

0:14:37 > 0:14:45He was seen by Dennis Main Wilson, a BBC producer who was looking for talent for a new type of radio show.

0:14:45 > 0:14:52MUSIC FROM "HANCOCK" We decided with Tony that we would like to do a situation comedy

0:14:52 > 0:14:59on radio without any funny voices. Just character comedy without jokes or funny voices.

0:14:59 > 0:15:04Instead of getting different actors, we wanted one person to do the lot.

0:15:04 > 0:15:07Dennis said, "I've just found him.

0:15:07 > 0:15:09"Wonderful actor.

0:15:09 > 0:15:13"He's playing the Dauphin in St Joan."

0:15:13 > 0:15:18We said, "That sounds ideal for situation comedy(!)"

0:15:18 > 0:15:21We said, "No funny voices?" "No, no."

0:15:21 > 0:15:27So this rather strange looking young man came to read through. Ken came out with,

0:15:27 > 0:15:30"Good evenin'."

0:15:30 > 0:15:36Funny voice, straight away. And on the show, it got an enormous laugh.

0:15:36 > 0:15:39KNOCKING Come in.

0:15:39 > 0:15:42Good evenin'.

0:15:42 > 0:15:48Instead of saying, "We're doing away with funny voices," we used it.

0:15:48 > 0:15:55Radio was the ideal medium for the skill Williams had perfected since childhood - doing voices.

0:15:55 > 0:16:00- Ken had four voices. His snide voice. - No, stop messing about.

0:16:00 > 0:16:05- His Felix Aylmer voice.- That owe your lives, your faith, your services...

0:16:05 > 0:16:12Felix Aylmer was a very elderly actor of the time and he had this wonderful plummy voice.

0:16:12 > 0:16:16Picture of a young girl in a leopardskin bikini...

0:16:16 > 0:16:22- Ken did an impression of him. - Is she in the case?- No.- What a pity.

0:16:22 > 0:16:26Nigel Smythe voice, upper-class twit.

0:16:26 > 0:16:33- Sergeant Plunger...- Sir! - Get the arc light set up.- Yes, sir. - Right, chaps, cordon off the area.

0:16:33 > 0:16:37- Good evening.- Go away. This is not a side-show.

0:16:37 > 0:16:43Then he had his Cockney, which was an impression of his father, I suppose.

0:16:43 > 0:16:48'Ere you are, mate. Blabbermouth Building. That'll be six and nine.

0:16:48 > 0:16:54- I'm not paying that. It's only a mile.- But we come the long way round.

0:16:54 > 0:17:01You seem to collect voices. Do you borrow them from people that you've met or pluck them from the air?

0:17:01 > 0:17:06Oh, yes, they are taken from people I've known. Pinched, I suppose.

0:17:06 > 0:17:11The snide voice - that "stop messing about" one...

0:17:11 > 0:17:14I met a boy who worked in the Mint.

0:17:14 > 0:17:21He described how you were searched if they suspected you were taking out anything that you shouldn't.

0:17:21 > 0:17:26He had a perpetual smile. He said, "Oh, you know,

0:17:26 > 0:17:31"you have to be careful because they make you take your clothes off."

0:17:31 > 0:17:33There was a very good idea there.

0:17:33 > 0:17:40- SNIDE VOICE: - I listen to your radio show every week. I think it's rotten.

0:17:40 > 0:17:46All except that bloke with the funny voice. He's a scream, ain't he?

0:17:46 > 0:17:50- LAUGHTER - Oh, he has me in stitches.

0:17:50 > 0:17:55You know, there are actually people like that.

0:17:55 > 0:17:59LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE FROM AUDIENCE

0:17:59 > 0:18:02He turned out to be a grotesque,

0:18:02 > 0:18:09which is quite essential. Some of your great comic characters are basically grotesques.

0:18:09 > 0:18:16Frankie Howerd was a grotesque. Tommy Cooper, in his own way, was a grotesque. Ken had this quality.

0:18:16 > 0:18:19Erm... It's a quality...

0:18:19 > 0:18:23It's not natural. It's supernatural, in a way.

0:18:23 > 0:18:30Williams' time on the Hancock show was not happy. He believed that Hancock resented his success.

0:18:30 > 0:18:34- You don't like me now.- No, I don't.

0:18:34 > 0:18:38- Come on, let's be chums. Make up.- No.

0:18:38 > 0:18:43When the show transferred to TV, Williams' role in it diminished.

0:18:43 > 0:18:49He blamed Hancock, convinced he didn't want his company either on or off the show.

0:18:49 > 0:18:54'Had a chat with Tony. I don't think he wants me in the set-up in future.

0:18:54 > 0:18:59'He thinks that set characters make a rut in story routine.

0:18:59 > 0:19:06'The only one he wants back is Sidney James. He's mad about him. They go everywhere together.'

0:19:06 > 0:19:11We were trying to get the subject matter and characters more realistic.

0:19:11 > 0:19:15Less cartoony, less farcical.

0:19:15 > 0:19:21It was nothing to do with any jealousy on Tony's part, or worry about Ken taking...

0:19:21 > 0:19:28Nothing like that. It was a purely professional decision. In my opinion, a correct one.

0:19:28 > 0:19:35Williams was living in the first of a succession of small, spartan flats he would always inhabit alone.

0:19:35 > 0:19:42He shunned close personal relationships, and the diary became his confessional and his confidante.

0:19:42 > 0:19:44"Really," he says...

0:19:44 > 0:19:50And he puts it in italics. "Diaries are about loneliness." His certainly was.

0:19:50 > 0:19:58It's having some sort of echo in your head of a voice that otherwise would have been another person's voice.

0:19:58 > 0:20:03If he'd been sharing his domesticity with somebody, having conversations,

0:20:03 > 0:20:08there would've been no need for a diary. There was no such person,

0:20:08 > 0:20:16only Louie, whose understanding of his feelings was necessarily limited, so he had to put it in writing.

0:20:16 > 0:20:22'Did the Hancock show from the Piccadilly. It was a general disaster. Really terrible.

0:20:22 > 0:20:27'This team is so dreary to me now, especially James and Hancock -

0:20:27 > 0:20:33'listless and disinterested. Their conversation is real pleb stuff.

0:20:33 > 0:20:36'I don't care for any of them.'

0:20:36 > 0:20:43If people had asked me in the '50s, "Who is one of the happiest people you've met?" I'd say Ken Williams.

0:20:43 > 0:20:45Always laughing. Very funny man.

0:20:45 > 0:20:5030 years later I picked up his diaries

0:20:50 > 0:20:55to find out that he hated every minute of it. I was astounded.

0:20:55 > 0:20:58Yes, they are angry, waspish, bitter.

0:20:58 > 0:21:03But they are beautiful jobs of writing. That was his release,

0:21:03 > 0:21:07where he went to himself in private

0:21:07 > 0:21:09and told himself the real story.

0:21:09 > 0:21:15The heart of this was his inability to come to terms with homosexuality.

0:21:15 > 0:21:19He was tormented by this throughout his life.

0:21:19 > 0:21:24'I feel a sexual nature which I am thoroughly ashamed and disgusted by.

0:21:24 > 0:21:28'It colours all my life, everything.

0:21:28 > 0:21:33'The sight of a navvy working in the street, stripped to the waist,

0:21:33 > 0:21:40'and gold, tanned flesh and muscles, and I am back on square one - full of guilt and shame.

0:21:40 > 0:21:44'Even if I did it, I know I couldn't live with sex.'

0:21:44 > 0:21:49- How is your love life? How do you rate yourself as a lover?- I don't...

0:21:49 > 0:21:54No, I'm asexual. I should have been a monk. Should have been a monk.

0:21:54 > 0:21:57I'm only interested in myself,

0:21:57 > 0:22:02and I would regard any kind of "re-la-tion-ship"...

0:22:02 > 0:22:05as deeply intrusive.

0:22:05 > 0:22:11Privacy is important to me. Anything which invaded that would be a threat.

0:22:11 > 0:22:16So I live a life of celibacy. I'm not interested in the other.

0:22:16 > 0:22:21But in his early 30s, Williams did enter into a physical relationship

0:22:21 > 0:22:25that was the closest he came to sharing his life.

0:22:25 > 0:22:32In 1958 he met 21-year-old Australian Paul Florance. The two were close for four years.

0:22:32 > 0:22:39After Florance returned to Australia, they corresponded right up until Kenneth's death.

0:22:39 > 0:22:44'When I see your familiar handwriting, when I read lines

0:22:44 > 0:22:48'only you can write, I am plunged back into the past.

0:22:48 > 0:22:52'I am that tearful suitor of Endsleigh Court days.

0:22:52 > 0:22:56'I begin to wonder if anything really alters.'

0:22:56 > 0:22:59I feel that Kenneth did love me.

0:22:59 > 0:23:06When we first met, I was bowled over by...by him.

0:23:06 > 0:23:09There was a...a bond between us...

0:23:09 > 0:23:12which was...

0:23:12 > 0:23:16very important to him and important to me.

0:23:16 > 0:23:22At one point it was even suggested that he and I shared an apartment...

0:23:22 > 0:23:26erm...in the...in the early days.

0:23:26 > 0:23:30I think he viewed the act of sex...

0:23:30 > 0:23:35as something that was not and could never be part of his make-up.

0:23:35 > 0:23:39He felt that any physical relationship,

0:23:39 > 0:23:42no matter what form it took,

0:23:42 > 0:23:46could be, for him, perhaps a form of destruction.

0:23:46 > 0:23:50But his sexual urges were the same as anybody else's.

0:23:50 > 0:23:57But in future, Williams' relations with men were confined to brief encounters.

0:23:57 > 0:24:02Instead there was what he called in the diary, "traditional activity".

0:24:02 > 0:24:07I think this was a disguised expansion of "trade".

0:24:07 > 0:24:10Pick-ups. That was his sex life.

0:24:10 > 0:24:15Always with big, strong men. He said he wanted strong arms to hold him.

0:24:15 > 0:24:19This is obviously what he wanted from Charlie and never got.

0:24:19 > 0:24:22Williams' extreme sexual repression

0:24:22 > 0:24:26drove him into another make-believe world.

0:24:26 > 0:24:32He said, "I have my fantasies, and no human being could live up to them."

0:24:32 > 0:24:37I think, because his imagination has been fantastically vivid,

0:24:37 > 0:24:44and the margins of his life were populated by beautiful people like road diggers stripped to the waist,

0:24:44 > 0:24:49it had to be masturbation. That was his chief sexual activity,

0:24:49 > 0:24:54referred to by him as the Barclays. Barclays Bank, in rhyming slang.

0:24:54 > 0:25:00And he was obviously a dedicated artist in this form.

0:25:00 > 0:25:05My world revolves about myself. I look in the mirror and think, "Oh...

0:25:05 > 0:25:08"Oh, what a dish!" I think.

0:25:08 > 0:25:11This wonderful figure.

0:25:11 > 0:25:15And this hair. Spun gold, it's been described.

0:25:15 > 0:25:20I'm described as a head of spun gold. I hope they're getting it.

0:25:20 > 0:25:22'Snow blizzard

0:25:22 > 0:25:25'whirling outside all day.

0:25:25 > 0:25:30'I hoovered the lounge carpet, dressing only in bathing trunks.

0:25:30 > 0:25:35'It was very daring, and the atmosphere was charged with sex.

0:25:35 > 0:25:40'If anyone had walked in, they would have been irresistibly attracted.'

0:25:40 > 0:25:47He was tremendously narcissistic. This could take the simplest forms - just looking in the mirror

0:25:47 > 0:25:51and realising how beautiful he was.

0:25:51 > 0:25:56There'd be a transport of narcissism that would reach to erotic heights.

0:25:56 > 0:26:02And I think the Barclays - the famous Barclays Bank - would follow.

0:26:06 > 0:26:11While Williams could never accept his homosexuality,

0:26:11 > 0:26:18what he did incredibly successfully was exploit it in his professional life. In 1958,

0:26:18 > 0:26:24Williams joined the programme Beyond Our Ken, later Round The Horne.

0:26:24 > 0:26:31With Hugh Paddick he created a legendary double act featuring two outrageously camp chorus boys,

0:26:31 > 0:26:33Julian and Sandy.

0:26:33 > 0:26:39Hello, I'm Julian. This is my friend Sandy. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

0:26:39 > 0:26:44What sent you trolling off round the world like you did?

0:26:44 > 0:26:50- The call of the sea, Mr Horne.- Yes. - I can't resist it. - He can't resist it.

0:26:50 > 0:26:55When he gets the call, he's got to go. Go to go. Haven't you, Jule?

0:26:55 > 0:26:59- Like a shot.- Like a shot. - Off like a shot.

0:26:59 > 0:27:04- So I said, "Well, I'm game." - And he is, Mr Horne. He's game.

0:27:04 > 0:27:08Oh, no, ducky. There's no-one gamier.

0:27:08 > 0:27:15It was the first time that a couple of camp gentlemen had really ever been heard on radio ever.

0:27:15 > 0:27:20And we were astounded, I think, that it got past the censor.

0:27:20 > 0:27:25We had a censor then, of course. But it did.

0:27:25 > 0:27:30It was conspiracy between the eight million people who listened

0:27:30 > 0:27:35who each would say, "I understand it, but I don't think my neighbour does."

0:27:35 > 0:27:40- Mr Horne, what brings you trolling in here?- Help me. I've erred.

0:27:40 > 0:27:45- We've all 'eard, ducky. It's common knowledge.- Will you take my case?

0:27:45 > 0:27:51- Depends. Our criminal practice takes up our time.- But apart from that...

0:27:51 > 0:27:56LAUGHTER

0:27:56 > 0:28:02With an audience at eight million, Round The Horne was the most popular radio show of its day.

0:28:02 > 0:28:09Williams enjoyed his time on the programme, chiefly because of urbane straight man Kenneth Horne.

0:28:09 > 0:28:12Williams adored him.

0:28:12 > 0:28:17For Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Horne was the father he never had.

0:28:17 > 0:28:22His own father was a homophobic... "Boxing will make a man of him."

0:28:22 > 0:28:26Kenneth Horne was a very dear man, a very decent chap,

0:28:26 > 0:28:33and Kenneth thought, "If only he would be my father." He responded very much to him in that way.

0:28:33 > 0:28:38Kenneth Williams, all his life, was looking for an ideal father.

0:28:38 > 0:28:42If you could put one line together to explain Kenneth Williams,

0:28:42 > 0:28:47it was Kenneth Williams in search of the father he wanted.

0:28:47 > 0:28:52But with the rest of the cast, Williams' ego was all too evident

0:28:52 > 0:28:57- as he fought to be the centre of attention.- Egotist in every way.

0:28:57 > 0:29:02I think he would have preferred to have done all the parts.

0:29:02 > 0:29:06I think he was really... My part, everybody's part.

0:29:06 > 0:29:13All the women. And he would have been awfully good, I'm sure. Awfully talented.

0:29:13 > 0:29:16If you met him for the first time...

0:29:16 > 0:29:20he would size you up.

0:29:20 > 0:29:25If he thought you were somebody out of his reach or alien to him,

0:29:25 > 0:29:32he would probably tell you one of his dreadful, dreadful jokes. Bum jokes, we used to call them.

0:29:32 > 0:29:39If you were offended by it, he'd keep on and on and on until it hammered you into the ground.

0:29:39 > 0:29:44It was as if some demon had got into him sometimes.

0:29:44 > 0:29:49I've been held back! I have. I could have been a star. A star!

0:29:49 > 0:29:56I could have been somebody, and they're coming up to my house and knocking on my door

0:29:56 > 0:30:00and making me a very nice "pro-po-si-tion".

0:30:00 > 0:30:03There! It's out! It's out!

0:30:03 > 0:30:10- He was so suppressed that it came bursting out in comedy.- And I'm glad!

0:30:10 > 0:30:12I'm glad!

0:30:12 > 0:30:17Kenneth Horne was archetypally English laid-back.

0:30:17 > 0:30:21Then you get Kenneth - this little, manic, furious man.

0:30:21 > 0:30:25- Can we go on now?- Yes. You're wanted on the phone.

0:30:25 > 0:30:33And all the suppression, all the rage, all the loneliness came out in those performances.

0:30:33 > 0:30:36That's why they were so mesmeric.

0:30:36 > 0:30:41Williams was a star, but success made little impact on his life.

0:30:41 > 0:30:45He discouraged visitors to his home,

0:30:45 > 0:30:51and the few who were allowed into his flat were amazed by what they saw.

0:30:51 > 0:30:54I've never walked into any house

0:30:54 > 0:31:00which was as drab. There was nothing on the wall. There were just grey walls,

0:31:00 > 0:31:06these two chairs, a rug, and one solid piece of furniture, really.

0:31:06 > 0:31:08And that was all.

0:31:08 > 0:31:13It was startling in its absence of texture.

0:31:13 > 0:31:15There was just no colour,

0:31:15 > 0:31:18no life in the room,

0:31:18 > 0:31:21no...joy in the room.

0:31:21 > 0:31:27His musical taste was lieder. He used to listen to very esoteric lieder.

0:31:27 > 0:31:30GERMAN SONG PLAYS

0:31:30 > 0:31:35Hated me using the lavatory as well. He didn't want me to do that.

0:31:36 > 0:31:42I've only met one person who used it. Even his own sister Pat was debarred.

0:31:42 > 0:31:46FLUSHING

0:31:46 > 0:31:48He even put plastic

0:31:48 > 0:31:53over the stove to keep things from penetrating.

0:31:53 > 0:31:57And that... I think that's rather telling.

0:31:57 > 0:32:02I mean, he didn't like being penetrated in any sense of the word.

0:32:02 > 0:32:07This was really a little cave of consciousness that he had there.

0:32:07 > 0:32:10Nothing came in except him.

0:32:10 > 0:32:14Williams spent his money not on himself

0:32:14 > 0:32:18but on his parents, for whom he bought a flat in Kensington.

0:32:18 > 0:32:25- Power in the family had shifted from Charlie to his son. - As Kenneth was getting more famous,

0:32:25 > 0:32:28Charlie had to toe the line.

0:32:28 > 0:32:33He couldn't say what he really... thought, you know,

0:32:33 > 0:32:39because of Louie. Everything had to be just so for Kenneth.

0:32:39 > 0:32:44Louie increasingly lived her life through her son and was a loyal fan.

0:32:44 > 0:32:51Louie always was at every broadcast and she used to sit about two rows from the front.

0:32:51 > 0:32:54And there was...

0:32:54 > 0:33:00to my mind, a very weird relationship - mother-son relationship -

0:33:00 > 0:33:05because all his most salacious remarks or lines in the script

0:33:05 > 0:33:09would always be directed straight at his mother.

0:33:09 > 0:33:14She just lapped it all up. Probably thought he's funnier than the rest.

0:33:18 > 0:33:25In the late '50s and early '60s, Williams was in big demand. As well as radio,

0:33:25 > 0:33:30he topped the bill in a string of revues. Revue was an ideal vehicle

0:33:30 > 0:33:37for Kenneth's high camp, quickfire style, and he became a master at controlling an audience.

0:33:37 > 0:33:43The revue that launched him in 1957 was written by an unknown Cambridge undergraduate.

0:33:43 > 0:33:49He was perfect for the part. It was a zany revue centred on a character

0:33:49 > 0:33:54who had the same quirky separateness from everything around him.

0:33:54 > 0:33:57Someone who stood back and commented.

0:33:57 > 0:34:03So I couldn't believe that there was anyone who was so exactly what I needed.

0:34:03 > 0:34:09And he was easily the funniest person I'd ever met. I was astonished.

0:34:09 > 0:34:12- Orange!- Pink!- Maroon!- Grey!- Violet!

0:34:12 > 0:34:18- Brown!- Blue!- Orange!- Green? What a ridiculous colour for a suit.

0:34:18 > 0:34:22Lettuce green, if you don't mind.

0:34:22 > 0:34:28Kenneth was like a malevolent elf. He wasn't like a real person, almost.

0:34:28 > 0:34:35They don't like my lettuce green suit, and they don't like the fact that I grew my own lettuce.

0:34:35 > 0:34:40He primped around, and his little bum stuck out.

0:34:40 > 0:34:47It was weird. A weird experience. He was hysterically funny, but like something from another planet.

0:34:49 > 0:34:51The sketch-based format of revue

0:34:51 > 0:34:56was perfect for Williams to win laughs through his inventiveness.

0:34:56 > 0:35:00He became a notorious ad-libber.

0:35:00 > 0:35:07A five-minute sketch could go on for 20 minutes. He would beat the audience into submission,

0:35:07 > 0:35:13and then go beyond it so the audience was uncomfortable. It became scary.

0:35:13 > 0:35:17One day he just rushed me into another room

0:35:17 > 0:35:21and he said, "You and I have got to remember

0:35:21 > 0:35:28"that we're the ones who are going to go up there and take it, and we've got to protect ourselves.

0:35:28 > 0:35:34"What we have to do with this piffle is ad-lib and improvise round it."

0:35:34 > 0:35:39"Outrageous" was how critics described Williams in revue,

0:35:39 > 0:35:45but the impulse behind his behaviour was serious. He now topped the bill.

0:35:45 > 0:35:47He could not allow himself to fail.

0:35:47 > 0:35:54Do you get on well? Do you find that Kenneth makes things up as he goes along?

0:35:54 > 0:35:59- He's got an inventive mind.- But I'm co-operative. Very professional.

0:35:59 > 0:36:06- How dare you?- Do you mind? - How about that line last night? - The lines that YOU put in...

0:36:08 > 0:36:15Williams' revues were attracting the best writing talent, including Harold Pinter, John Mortimer,

0:36:15 > 0:36:18and Footlights star Peter Cook.

0:36:18 > 0:36:23Many of Cook's famous sketches were originally written for Williams.

0:36:23 > 0:36:28- SNIDE VOICE:- I've got a viper in this box, you know.- Really?

0:36:28 > 0:36:35- Good gracious me.- It's not an asp. - Good.- Looks rather like one, but it's not one.

0:36:35 > 0:36:38- Oh, no, I wouldn't have an asp.- No.

0:36:38 > 0:36:45Some people can't tell the difference between a viper and an asp. More fool them, I say.

0:36:45 > 0:36:47Ironically, it was Cook

0:36:47 > 0:36:53who killed off Kenneth's career in revue when he performed the sketches himself.

0:36:53 > 0:36:56My viper eats like a horse.

0:36:58 > 0:37:01- Like a horse, eh?- Oh, yes.

0:37:01 > 0:37:04Yes. Yes, I'd like a horse.

0:37:06 > 0:37:09By 1961, revue had a new look

0:37:09 > 0:37:11and a new breed of performers.

0:37:11 > 0:37:18Beyond The Fringe, starring Peter Cook and colleagues, was considered so clever

0:37:18 > 0:37:21that nothing else could compete.

0:37:21 > 0:37:23Beyond The Fringe, in a way,

0:37:23 > 0:37:31rubbished everything that had gone before. A lot was said in the papers about how effete revue had been,

0:37:31 > 0:37:36and it wasn't relevant today, and it wasn't any more. Things change.

0:37:36 > 0:37:40Things move on. It was quite right that it should shift.

0:37:40 > 0:37:46Kenneth didn't think he fitted into that extraordinarily clever world,

0:37:46 > 0:37:53although he was extraordinarily clever. He was extremely well read, but he hadn't been to university.

0:37:53 > 0:37:59He felt, I think, like I did - inferior to this new breed that swamped the theatre.

0:38:01 > 0:38:05Williams' niche in the West End had collapsed,

0:38:05 > 0:38:10but work had started to come in from a very different direction.

0:38:10 > 0:38:18He'd been spotted in revue by producer Peter Rogers and offered a role in a new comedy film.

0:38:18 > 0:38:23Without thinking too much about it, Williams took it.

0:38:23 > 0:38:27Red Admiral here. Red Admiral here.

0:38:27 > 0:38:34Williams' performances in the Carry On films would later overshadow all his other work.

0:38:34 > 0:38:38He appeared in 22 of them, more than any other actor.

0:38:38 > 0:38:43- What happens if anything goes wrong? - We'll have to amputate your leg.

0:38:43 > 0:38:47But his attitude to them was always ambivalent.

0:38:47 > 0:38:54- Your misreading of my potential is sublime in its totality. - Get him out of here!- Charming(!)

0:38:54 > 0:39:00I think there was a great love-hate relationship. What was good about it,

0:39:00 > 0:39:08they gave him security. There's no doubt about that. Films being made every year were bringing in money.

0:39:08 > 0:39:13And another plus was the fact that it was like an extended family.

0:39:13 > 0:39:16Some people he loved, some he hated.

0:39:16 > 0:39:20But, of course, that makes life. The bad side of them was,

0:39:20 > 0:39:23it was a lot of bums and tits jokes.

0:39:23 > 0:39:30The very base humour that Kenneth found very easy to do, but that wasn't the reason he became an actor.

0:39:30 > 0:39:34I think there was a certain pull there.

0:39:34 > 0:39:40At this stage, the Carry On films were a lucrative side-line for Williams.

0:39:40 > 0:39:47Success in the theatre was still what mattered. There had been some heavyweight roles since St Joan.

0:39:47 > 0:39:54Orson Welles had cast him in Moby Dick, and he played opposite Alec Guinness in Hotel Paradiso.

0:39:54 > 0:39:59His opportunity to show what a fine comedy actor he was came in 1962

0:39:59 > 0:40:06when Peter Shaffer, who later penned Equus and Amadeus, chose Williams to star in

0:40:06 > 0:40:11the second part of his double bill, The Private Ear and The Public Eye.

0:40:11 > 0:40:13He loved what he called

0:40:13 > 0:40:16the literacy of the play.

0:40:16 > 0:40:21He loved that. He would say, "I really adore that kind of writing.

0:40:21 > 0:40:26"It's proper writing." And his nostrils would flare.

0:40:26 > 0:40:33He had this knack of looking comic but he wasn't being comic at all. He was being deadly serious.

0:40:33 > 0:40:35He was delighted by the prospect

0:40:35 > 0:40:43of speaking any sentences that had an elegance to them, or a sheen to them, or a verbal felicity to them.

0:40:43 > 0:40:48Playing opposite him was a rising young actress named Maggie Smith.

0:40:48 > 0:40:56She soon recognised his mastery of comic technique and Williams became her teacher as well as her co-star.

0:40:56 > 0:41:01Ken, in the office at the Queen's Theatre, said, "Look, ducky..."

0:41:01 > 0:41:04He said, "You know, you're being

0:41:04 > 0:41:07"absolutely boring,"

0:41:07 > 0:41:14and went through it sentence by sentence and said, "You'd never say a sentence like that. You wouldn't."

0:41:14 > 0:41:22I was literally learning a speech and just saying it, thinking, "How clever. I've learnt all the words."

0:41:22 > 0:41:26I'd never thought of colouring things vividly.

0:41:26 > 0:41:30Immediacy is the greatest gift in comedy.

0:41:30 > 0:41:35It's what you were saying about the challenge nightly with an audience.

0:41:35 > 0:41:40To make it seem as though it is coming out for the first time.

0:41:40 > 0:41:46Absolutely. And that you surprise the audience a lot of the time.

0:41:46 > 0:41:52- Kenneth's relationship with Maggie Smith was more than just professional.- Twin souls,

0:41:52 > 0:41:55very alike in some ways.

0:41:55 > 0:41:58And I was always aware that they had

0:41:58 > 0:42:03this...what I can only call a shining intimacy.

0:42:03 > 0:42:08Would you say Kenneth had been a big influence on you?

0:42:08 > 0:42:11Enormous. I pinch from him all the time.

0:42:11 > 0:42:14Can you give us some examples?

0:42:14 > 0:42:20In Black Comedy I'm doing a Kenneth. He hasn't seen it. He'd be livid.

0:42:20 > 0:42:24'This girl draws me like a magnet,

0:42:24 > 0:42:28'and I am inextricably involved with her.

0:42:28 > 0:42:32'It is a knot I will never want, or be able, to untie.'

0:42:32 > 0:42:40Friends like Maggie were crucial to Williams and made his loneliness more bearable. More than anything

0:42:40 > 0:42:47he loved family life and spent a great deal of time at the homes of fellow actors like Richard Pearson.

0:42:47 > 0:42:52He was included in their families very, very much.

0:42:52 > 0:42:55And he loved that. He loved children.

0:42:55 > 0:43:01Williams thought highly of marriage and the companionship it brought.

0:43:01 > 0:43:04He even sought it for himself.

0:43:04 > 0:43:11He felt there was a domestic norm he'd like to conform to. He'd like to be part of a married couple.

0:43:11 > 0:43:16There were women - possibly four or five women - that he proposed

0:43:16 > 0:43:18a kind of celibate marriage to.

0:43:18 > 0:43:23Annette Kerr was to receive three marriage proposals,

0:43:23 > 0:43:31- the first when they appeared together in rep.- One day Kenneth came downstairs and told us all off

0:43:31 > 0:43:36because we'd left a sort of jelly bit under the soap in the soap-dish.

0:43:36 > 0:43:42It was very messy, and the thing that you had to do was bring your soap...

0:43:42 > 0:43:46your nail-brush like that, put your soap on top of it,

0:43:46 > 0:43:51and then you didn't get the soap-dish mucky.

0:43:51 > 0:43:55So we said, "Yes, Kenneth. Right, Kenneth."

0:43:55 > 0:43:59A little after this, he suggested that I should marry him.

0:43:59 > 0:44:04I said, "Kenneth, I couldn't marry you. You're so fussy."

0:44:04 > 0:44:06"Oh," he said.

0:44:06 > 0:44:09He was so terribly fastidious.

0:44:09 > 0:44:15He would never have been able to share accommodation with anybody else.

0:44:15 > 0:44:20And I think that fastidiousness is one of the things

0:44:20 > 0:44:24that contributed to the celibacy.

0:44:24 > 0:44:28Williams was looking for more than a celibate marriage.

0:44:28 > 0:44:34It's clear from a diary extract that he had considered adopting children

0:44:34 > 0:44:39and creating a family with one of the women to whom he'd proposed.

0:44:39 > 0:44:47'I said to Nora, "We've both of us wasted our lives. The days have run through our fingers like bathwater."

0:44:47 > 0:44:53'I went on about what we should have done ten years ago and adopted the children.

0:44:53 > 0:44:56'I know, fundamentally, she agreed.'

0:44:56 > 0:45:01Kenneth was having a difficult time with his own family.

0:45:01 > 0:45:09His parents' relationship had gone from bad to worse. Charlie was in decline mentally and physically.

0:45:09 > 0:45:16The crisis came when he swallowed this stuff out of a bottle which said "Gee's Linctus". A cough remedy.

0:45:16 > 0:45:24But it turned out to be carbon tetrachloride. The dairy says that it's mysterious how it got there.

0:45:24 > 0:45:26Charlie never recovered.

0:45:26 > 0:45:31Kenneth told friends he believed his father had committed suicide.

0:45:31 > 0:45:34'So it's all over.

0:45:34 > 0:45:41'The doctor told Louie his brain was damaged, the heart was impaired and kidneys in bad condition -

0:45:41 > 0:45:48'that it was, in reality, a good thing, because he would have become worse.

0:45:48 > 0:45:50'Show went OK. Audience good.'

0:45:54 > 0:46:01Williams now had to face up to a crisis in his career - his first West End flop.

0:46:01 > 0:46:06He was a Puck-like character in Gentle Jack, starring Edith Evans.

0:46:06 > 0:46:10After Gentle Jack there was terrible booing.

0:46:10 > 0:46:15She said to me as the curtain fell, "Well, I heard one 'bravo'."

0:46:15 > 0:46:18I said, "No, that was 'go home'."

0:46:18 > 0:46:24Later Williams could joke about it but at the time, he was devastated.

0:46:24 > 0:46:29He couldn't face performing without having the audience on his side,

0:46:29 > 0:46:33and he lost confidence in himself and in the play.

0:46:33 > 0:46:39Williams fell back on what he knew would win the love of the audience.

0:46:39 > 0:46:42I went a week after it opened.

0:46:42 > 0:46:47He came down this rope, looked at the audience and went, "Hello."

0:46:47 > 0:46:52The audience fell about laughing. Dame Edith Evans wasn't amused.

0:46:52 > 0:46:55"Stick to what's written, boy."

0:46:55 > 0:46:59The problem for him was that if he didn't get any laughs,

0:46:59 > 0:47:02what's wrong? He was used to laughs.

0:47:02 > 0:47:10Williams' comic persona was a means of self-protection, but his reliance on it damaged his reputation

0:47:10 > 0:47:18and meant he never became the kind of performer he'd wanted to be and knew he could be.

0:47:24 > 0:47:32London in the mid-'60s was the place to be. The capital was swinging and change was in the air.

0:47:32 > 0:47:40Kenneth Williams looked unlikely to play any part in it. Conservative of habits, he seemed out of step.

0:47:40 > 0:47:46But his outer conformity hid a fascination with the sexual freedoms of the age.

0:47:46 > 0:47:53It was Swinging London, and Kenneth was always immaculately dressed. He was a smart little chap.

0:47:53 > 0:47:56He had a furled umbrella.

0:47:56 > 0:48:01He was on the back of my Lambretta. He sat straight, on the pillion.

0:48:01 > 0:48:06I said, "I'll go round Eros." I felt a bit high.

0:48:06 > 0:48:11Kenneth suddenly started shouting, waving this umbrella, saying,

0:48:11 > 0:48:17"Where's it happening? Where are the orgies? Why haven't we been asked?"

0:48:20 > 0:48:26Williams' wish to be part of the action was answered in 1964

0:48:26 > 0:48:33when he met one of the most anarchic and flamboyant figures of the age, the playwright Joe Orton,

0:48:33 > 0:48:38who'd just caused outrage with his West End hit Entertaining Mr Sloane.

0:48:38 > 0:48:43With him, I found myself laughing. He was funny. An impish kind of wit.

0:48:43 > 0:48:49Like Williams, Orton was gay, working-class, a prodigious diarist.

0:48:49 > 0:48:53Unlike Williams, Orton revelled in his sexuality.

0:48:53 > 0:48:57He lived with his lover Kenneth Halliwell

0:48:57 > 0:49:01and sought sexual adventure at every opportunity.

0:49:01 > 0:49:04The freedom of his humour,

0:49:04 > 0:49:12the freedom of himself is what so appealed to Williams, who was so unfree in himself, physically.

0:49:12 > 0:49:15He was bound by convention,

0:49:15 > 0:49:17and under wraps.

0:49:17 > 0:49:25Even if Williams couldn't in himself be unabashed, he could be part of someone's story who WAS unabashed,

0:49:25 > 0:49:27and that was liberating.

0:49:27 > 0:49:34I remember one escapade in Leicester. He said, "We couldn't go to my parents' house."

0:49:34 > 0:49:41So he took this bloke instead to the porch - the only part that remained - of a derelict house.

0:49:41 > 0:49:46He said having sex in this porch was difficult, it was so confined.

0:49:46 > 0:49:51He said, "My bum was outside most of the time and it was freezing."

0:49:51 > 0:49:58Orton wanted his friend to do more than take vicarious pleasure in his exploits.

0:49:58 > 0:50:03As his diary reveals, he urged Kenneth to shed his inhibitions

0:50:03 > 0:50:05and become more like him.

0:50:05 > 0:50:10' "I'm guilty about being homosexual," he said.

0:50:10 > 0:50:15' "You shouldn't be," I said. "Reject all the values of society.

0:50:15 > 0:50:18' "Enjoy sex. When you're dead you'll regret not having fun with your genital organs." '

0:50:18 > 0:50:21They always looked like...

0:50:22 > 0:50:26..two delinquent schoolboys to me.

0:50:26 > 0:50:31Both of them rejoicing in one another's schoolboy cleverness.

0:50:31 > 0:50:34And both needed success,

0:50:34 > 0:50:38and didn't want "unsuccess" at any price.

0:50:38 > 0:50:43Orton was determined his new friend would star in his latest play, Loot,

0:50:43 > 0:50:48and cast him as the wordly and brutal Inspector Truscott.

0:50:48 > 0:50:53Williams was thrilled to work with the country's hottest new writer,

0:50:53 > 0:50:57but their collaboration ended in disaster.

0:50:57 > 0:51:02Loot died a death on a provincial tour and never got to the West End.

0:51:02 > 0:51:09In Bournemouth one usherette was reported as saying it was unnecessarily filthy,

0:51:09 > 0:51:13as if there really was a necessary amount of filth.

0:51:13 > 0:51:16People were emptying the auditorium.

0:51:16 > 0:51:23We came under the Watch Committee in Manchester because we hadn't got the seal of the Lord Chamberlain.

0:51:23 > 0:51:30We had policemen in the wings. "If you say that line... The Watch Committee are banning that line."

0:51:30 > 0:51:37The Policeman had to say, "Where do you do it? The streets are well lit. Where have you done it?"

0:51:37 > 0:51:42The Boy had to say, "On crowded dance floors during the rumba."

0:51:42 > 0:51:47They said it was an aspersion about the local dance halls.

0:51:47 > 0:51:55The offence the play caused was not the only problem. The cast couldn't find a playing style that worked.

0:51:55 > 0:51:59No-one was struggling more than Kenneth Williams.

0:51:59 > 0:52:02Although Kenneth loved the play,

0:52:02 > 0:52:08it seemed to me, as we proceeded with rehearsals, that he was wrongly cast.

0:52:08 > 0:52:11'After the show I felt so depressed.

0:52:11 > 0:52:17'I don't know what to do. The shambles of this production is unbelievable.

0:52:17 > 0:52:22'The cast is demoralised, the script in rags, and some of it nonsense.

0:52:22 > 0:52:26'I wish I'd never set foot near the rotten mess.'

0:52:26 > 0:52:34Orton had failed to revive Williams' stage career, but he did transform his private world.

0:52:34 > 0:52:36In the summer of 1966,

0:52:36 > 0:52:43Orton and Halliwell took Williams on holiday to a place that would change his life.

0:52:43 > 0:52:47Tangier in the 1960s was a haven

0:52:47 > 0:52:52for gay men drawn there by the availability of sexual partners

0:52:52 > 0:52:56in a society tolerant of unconventional lifestyles.

0:52:56 > 0:52:59Orton was like Pinocchio at the fair.

0:52:59 > 0:53:04Orton could get into it, loved it. He was sensual, young, muscular.

0:53:04 > 0:53:09Williams approached the Tangier experience with restraint.

0:53:09 > 0:53:13Barry Wade met him on his first trip there.

0:53:13 > 0:53:16He used to wear his full clothes -

0:53:16 > 0:53:18suit, tie,

0:53:18 > 0:53:21jacket - and sit on the beach.

0:53:21 > 0:53:26Completely dressed. "I'm not taking my clothes off in front of someone."

0:53:26 > 0:53:33But we would all go swimming and Kenneth would have a few drinks,

0:53:33 > 0:53:39and plonk himself into a deckchair and go to sleep, rather like that.

0:53:39 > 0:53:46He might take the jacket off if it got too hot. That's about as far as you'd get, I think.

0:53:46 > 0:53:51He would complain bitterly all the time, but thoroughly enjoyed it.

0:53:51 > 0:53:55While the temptations of Tangier unsettled him,

0:53:55 > 0:53:59- Williams couldn't resist. - He came to the villa.

0:53:59 > 0:54:04I used to rent a villa there for three months. He loved all that.

0:54:04 > 0:54:10The villa, the parties. Complained, of course. "I shouldn't be here.

0:54:10 > 0:54:16"It's immoral, the whole place." Jumped on the back of a bike

0:54:16 > 0:54:18with a Moroccan, and drove off.

0:54:20 > 0:54:25'Eventually he took me to a sleazy apartment house in the Medina,

0:54:25 > 0:54:31'where a Spanish queen with a toupee showed us into a wretched chamber

0:54:31 > 0:54:34'for 15 dirham.

0:54:34 > 0:54:37'I'll have another bit of that tomorrow.'

0:54:37 > 0:54:40He'd disappear.

0:54:40 > 0:54:44"Where have you been, Kenneth?" "Mind your business."

0:54:44 > 0:54:49You weren't expecting to get any information.

0:54:49 > 0:54:53It all happened out of sight. He could still say,

0:54:53 > 0:54:56"I'm celibate. I don't do anything."

0:54:56 > 0:54:58So you say, "Yes, Kenneth."

0:54:58 > 0:55:02In Tangier, Williams could skirt the fringes

0:55:02 > 0:55:06of a world that repelled and fascinated him.

0:55:06 > 0:55:10It offered an escape from life at home,

0:55:10 > 0:55:17and, as previously unpublished photographs reveal, somewhere he could relax and feel part of life.

0:55:17 > 0:55:23'On all occasions, I fled to Morocco because of some inner despair.

0:55:23 > 0:55:29'There wasn't a successful visit in the sense of spiritual replenishment

0:55:29 > 0:55:36'but they all worked after a fashion because new rhythms were created and the pendulum must swing.

0:55:36 > 0:55:44'It's when the pendulum is motionless or barely moving, that is the time of suicidal despair."

0:55:46 > 0:55:53The relationship that helped create these new rhythms was cut short. On August the 9th, 1967,

0:55:53 > 0:55:57Kenneth Halliwell beat Joe Orton's brains out with a hammer,

0:55:57 > 0:56:01then took 22 sleeping tablets to kill himself.

0:56:05 > 0:56:12The loss of his friends confirmed for Williams the danger of following Orton's sexual creed.

0:56:12 > 0:56:19It is a homosexual entanglement that does destroy Joe. There's no question about that.

0:56:19 > 0:56:27Halliwell's jealousy... His letter at the end says the answer to this can be found in the diaries.

0:56:27 > 0:56:31The diaries of Joe were accounts of promiscuous sex.

0:56:35 > 0:56:39Matron! No! Please! Oh, your hand!

0:56:39 > 0:56:42Madam, I cannot. Not before a meal.

0:56:42 > 0:56:46But one area of Williams' life was unfailingly successful -

0:56:46 > 0:56:49his role as a Carry On star.

0:56:49 > 0:56:53- S.E.T.- S.E.T.?

0:56:53 > 0:56:56Sex Enjoyment Tax.

0:56:57 > 0:57:00Audiences loved their bawdy humour.

0:57:00 > 0:57:06The series became the most successful in British cinema history.

0:57:06 > 0:57:10Pinewood Studios turned out up to three a year,

0:57:10 > 0:57:12most featuring Kenneth Williams.

0:57:12 > 0:57:17Often what he gave in the theatre, people said, "We want less of this."

0:57:17 > 0:57:22With the Carry Ons, "We want more of this." The audiences liked it.

0:57:22 > 0:57:27He had a hit on his hands. We all would rather like a hit.

0:57:27 > 0:57:32Do not worry. They will die the death of a thousand cuts.

0:57:32 > 0:57:38- Oh, no! That's horrible.- Nonsense, child. The British are used to cuts.

0:57:38 > 0:57:42- Is this the type of part you like acting?- I always do.

0:57:42 > 0:57:48A touch of sadism. I'm good at being a bit nasty. Enjoy that very much.

0:57:48 > 0:57:51They didn't want characters.

0:57:51 > 0:57:55They wanted the essence of what you had.

0:57:55 > 0:57:57So Kenny was like himself.

0:57:57 > 0:58:01You wouldn't dare do anything to me and you know it!

0:58:01 > 0:58:04He was very snooty, very grand...

0:58:04 > 0:58:07very erudite.

0:58:07 > 0:58:09I'll cut his pancreas out!

0:58:09 > 0:58:13'He joked around, and he did that in the film.'

0:58:13 > 0:58:18You're wasting your time! You can't do anything to frighten me!

0:58:18 > 0:58:22Come on, then. Turn him over on his side.

0:58:22 > 0:58:25- Right...- No, no, no!

0:58:25 > 0:58:28I'll sign! I'll sign!

0:58:28 > 0:58:33He brought a restrained anarchy. You never knew what he would do next.

0:58:33 > 0:58:37The others, you knew what they would do.

0:58:37 > 0:58:39Are you all right, Doctor?

0:58:39 > 0:58:42All right? Of course I'm all right.

0:58:42 > 0:58:50'You watched Kenneth because at that time he could suddenly surprise you in a very ordinary scene.'

0:58:53 > 0:58:56Hah! Yes! I'm fine!

0:58:56 > 0:59:01Williams gave as much a performance off the set as he did on it.

0:59:01 > 0:59:06He liked to gather people round him and tell stories.

0:59:06 > 0:59:09The whole cast and all the staff

0:59:09 > 0:59:12and even the public who were watching

0:59:12 > 0:59:18would be waiting for him to set up his stall to tell stories.

0:59:18 > 0:59:21He was like the Pied Piper.

0:59:21 > 0:59:25Typical of Kenneth Williams' sense of humour.

0:59:25 > 0:59:30The Mayoress of Wolverhampton came on the set one morning.

0:59:30 > 0:59:38He was introduced to her and immediately went into a story that he does very well and tells everybody.

0:59:38 > 0:59:45And there is a tape of it where he's playing it with Bernard Cribbins as the doctor,

0:59:45 > 0:59:49and you may like to hear it.

0:59:49 > 0:59:53- I must see you, Doctor. - What's the trouble?

0:59:53 > 1:00:00- CONTINUAL FARTING - It's this wind...all the time. It's dreadful at work. I'm losing jobs.

1:00:00 > 1:00:04- What is your job?- Shorthand typist. - PHRRRT

1:00:04 > 1:00:08- Anything to do with diet?- No. - PHHHHRRRRRT

1:00:08 > 1:00:15- I eat anything. Cornflakes and porridge.- I'd better examine you. - PHRRT, PHRRRRRT

1:00:15 > 1:00:18There's no side-effects, are there?

1:00:18 > 1:00:24- PHRRRRRRRRT - Though there's the noise, there's no smell.- Oh?

1:00:24 > 1:00:29- Don't put that thing up my bum!- No, I'm going to stick it up your nose.

1:00:29 > 1:00:34If you think they don't smell, it's your nose wants seeing to.

1:00:36 > 1:00:39That was mild.

1:00:39 > 1:00:44There was little Williams wouldn't do to attract attention to himself.

1:00:44 > 1:00:51'This Roman tunic I'm wearing in the film is really quite attractive, in white and gold.'

1:00:51 > 1:00:54Give me a chance to look all sexy.

1:00:54 > 1:00:59'I continually lift it up and expose my cock at the unit.

1:00:59 > 1:01:06- 'They're all disgusted and laugh it off.'- Evening cock. - Thanks, cock. I'll be ready.

1:01:06 > 1:01:12'Quite a number of them have remarked, "Oh, Kenny! Not again! Put it away!" '

1:01:15 > 1:01:18The restaurant was full of people.

1:01:18 > 1:01:26- He used to say, "Hello, Giovanni. Nice to see you. Have you had a wank this morning?"- Charmed, I'm sure.

1:01:26 > 1:01:33But the impulse behind these antics was a desperate one. He could be appalled by his own behaviour,

1:01:33 > 1:01:38but the reaction it generated filled an emotional gap in his life.

1:01:38 > 1:01:46'The shameless way I behave - anything for a cheap laugh, dirty mimes and songs, obscene dialogue -

1:01:46 > 1:01:53'and the person that I really am at home, with myself - it is almost a Jekyll and Hyde existence.

1:01:53 > 1:02:00'The first half gives me guilt and remorse. The obvious remedy is to stop the lewd behaviour,

1:02:00 > 1:02:05'but then I'm loath to relinquish the laughs and the crowd about me.

1:02:05 > 1:02:10'I need them like other people need the affection of a partner.'

1:02:10 > 1:02:18I remember Ted Smith. He used to stand at bars saying, "You're not getting nothing out of me, mate."

1:02:18 > 1:02:23'All the comedians I've known have been deeply depressive people.

1:02:23 > 1:02:26'You realise what despair'

1:02:26 > 1:02:32was underneath the facade which they desperately kept it at bay with.

1:02:32 > 1:02:37They felt it their duty to channel a private misery into comedy.

1:02:37 > 1:02:40He was a prisoner perpetually

1:02:40 > 1:02:46of the persona that he knew elicited the response of hilarity

1:02:46 > 1:02:48and of...

1:02:48 > 1:02:50approval.

1:02:50 > 1:02:57There was something orgasmic about the effect he wanted in you hearing the story.

1:02:57 > 1:03:03He wanted that above all - to build something to a great climax, a crescendo

1:03:03 > 1:03:06of laughter and outrageousness.

1:03:06 > 1:03:09And then he would fall silent.

1:03:09 > 1:03:12I used to get concerned about him.

1:03:12 > 1:03:15I'd try to say, "Are you happy?"

1:03:15 > 1:03:21But he didn't want to talk about it. I was having counselling at one time.

1:03:21 > 1:03:27He thought that was ghastly. It would take away his creativity and destroy something in him.

1:03:27 > 1:03:31He felt it would stop him being what he was.

1:03:31 > 1:03:39The central relationship in his life was still with his mother. In 1972 they moved into adjacent flats.

1:03:39 > 1:03:46They went everywhere together, took holidays on cruise ships and shared a sense of humour.

1:03:46 > 1:03:49She was funny. Great with repartee.

1:03:49 > 1:03:52She had wonderful sayings of her own,

1:03:52 > 1:03:57but she...she also used to borrow phrases from Kenneth.

1:03:57 > 1:03:59Sometimes the dialogue between them

1:03:59 > 1:04:06- was quite entertaining. - They could be so uninhibited that friends were speechless.

1:04:06 > 1:04:11When we first had Kenneth here with Louie, he was leaving

1:04:11 > 1:04:18and said, "I must take her home now and rub her tits with olive oil." Talking like this to his mother.

1:04:18 > 1:04:25And if you said, "Really, Kenneth, you can't talk like that to your mother,"

1:04:25 > 1:04:30Louie would interrupt and say, "Don't you worry about my Ken."

1:04:32 > 1:04:39The impressive store of general knowledge that Williams had acquired during his drive to educate himself

1:04:39 > 1:04:43finally found a public outlet in 1968

1:04:43 > 1:04:48on Just A Minute, the radio game show in which panellists talk

1:04:48 > 1:04:53for one minute on a subject without hesitation, deviation or repetition.

1:04:53 > 1:04:56The subject is stopping hiccups.

1:04:56 > 1:05:03- Can you tell us something about that, starting now? - One of the best tips I can give you

1:05:03 > 1:05:07is to INHALE deeply

1:05:07 > 1:05:11and then recite a long piece

1:05:11 > 1:05:16such as, "The old order changeth, yielding place to new..."

1:05:16 > 1:05:21RAPIDLY AND INCOHERENTLY RECITES

1:05:21 > 1:05:26- BUZZ - Peter Jones has challenged. - You'd be better off with hiccups.

1:05:26 > 1:05:31Before the programme started, Kenneth would go,

1:05:31 > 1:05:35"Oh, I don't like all this. I'm a cult."

1:05:35 > 1:05:43Stick his bottom right out. "I'm a cult. I'm the biggest cult in the whole of the BBC." And he'd sit down.

1:05:43 > 1:05:48Kenneth always sat here. Freud there. Peter Jones there. Myself over there.

1:05:48 > 1:05:54As the programme started and Freud might be talking in his very slow, lugubrious way...

1:05:54 > 1:05:57"I took this dog out for a walk..."

1:05:57 > 1:06:03Kenneth would roll his trousers up and flaunt his leg under Freud's nose

1:06:03 > 1:06:08and then go over and nuzzle him up against his beard, stroking him.

1:06:08 > 1:06:15Freud would still go on without being interrupted in that very slow way, looking straight ahead.

1:06:15 > 1:06:19Now, Kenneth would be looking at his mother.

1:06:19 > 1:06:23She always sat two rows back. AUDIENCE SHOUT

1:06:23 > 1:06:27Oh, how lovely! Oh, wonderful!

1:06:27 > 1:06:31However rude he might be, everything went to his mother.

1:06:31 > 1:06:36- BUZZ - He's ejaculating like mad there.

1:06:38 > 1:06:43- Keeping a stiff upper lip. Starting now.- I have tried this myself,

1:06:43 > 1:06:49and inevitably one comes to resemble a ventriloquist's dummy.

1:06:49 > 1:06:54Just A Minute was more than just a game show to Williams.

1:06:54 > 1:07:00It was his chance to show a side of himself that he really cared about,

1:07:00 > 1:07:05- and his anger at being contradicted was often real.- It's the subject,

1:07:05 > 1:07:09so we're supposed to discuss it, you fool!

1:07:09 > 1:07:15What sound as if they start off as fantasy rages end up like real rages.

1:07:15 > 1:07:19Those performances were quite strange.

1:07:19 > 1:07:24Should this be broadcast? This is too authentic to be entertainment.

1:07:24 > 1:07:29- It is a rope.- He was giving an example of how this word...

1:07:29 > 1:07:37It is a rope. It can't be a knot. What are you talking about? A knot's for tying, you great nit.

1:07:41 > 1:07:46But in real life, Williams could be far ruder and far angrier.

1:07:46 > 1:07:49A friend of mine from the country said,

1:07:49 > 1:07:55"Oh, Kenneth, how nice to see you. What are you doing now?"

1:07:55 > 1:07:57"What am I doing?"

1:07:57 > 1:08:05"I happen to be appearing with Ingrid Bergman at the Cambridge Theatre, you bald-headed country bumpkin."

1:08:05 > 1:08:09Even the public could receive a Williams outburst.

1:08:09 > 1:08:14He related one such incident in a message left on an answer-phone.

1:08:14 > 1:08:18- BEEP - 'I did Just A Minute yesterday.

1:08:18 > 1:08:23'It was awful. A dreadful man came up onto the stage after and said,

1:08:23 > 1:08:31' "Do you fulfil the strictures of Lord Reith that everything should be for the glory of Christianity?"

1:08:31 > 1:08:37'I said, "Oh, shut up. People like you wear me out." He said, "Bless you, my son."

1:08:37 > 1:08:40'I said, "Don't give me that crap."

1:08:40 > 1:08:47' "I will pray for you." I said, "Don't bother. Your presence is embarrassing.

1:08:47 > 1:08:52' "You cause nothing but vexation, like your religious friends." '

1:08:52 > 1:09:00Williams grew to hate the attention he received in the street, regarding it as an intrusion into his privacy.

1:09:00 > 1:09:03'I feel the bleeding going on inside.

1:09:03 > 1:09:07'Every day, I die more consciously.

1:09:07 > 1:09:12'The staring, the stopping in the street, the nudging of people,

1:09:12 > 1:09:15'my fear of them, my hate of them,

1:09:15 > 1:09:20'my desire to get away from their prying eyes.'

1:09:20 > 1:09:28Although Williams shrank from public curiosity, his ego needed reassuring that he HAD been recognised.

1:09:28 > 1:09:31To hear your lovely voice!

1:09:31 > 1:09:33We went somewhere quiet.

1:09:33 > 1:09:37In Fulham Road, I think. Because it was quiet, he said.

1:09:37 > 1:09:41Must you play so blasted loud?!

1:09:41 > 1:09:44It WAS quiet, until Kenneth started.

1:09:44 > 1:09:51- Go on! - We got halfway through the meal. Everybody there knew who it was.

1:09:51 > 1:09:53Miss Fosdick looks quite gay.

1:09:53 > 1:09:59And as soon as he'd got them all in his grasp,

1:09:59 > 1:10:06he said, "Come on. I'm fed up with this. I can't stand these people." We left, halfway through the meal.

1:10:06 > 1:10:12Williams owed his high public profile to the Carry On films,

1:10:12 > 1:10:16but their success was trapping him in a stereotype.

1:10:16 > 1:10:22His tragedy, in a way, was that he was too clever for the material.

1:10:22 > 1:10:27He knew that he was doing a lot of inferior stuff among the good work.

1:10:27 > 1:10:31- What do you want?- Dandy Desmond. - BOTH: That's him.

1:10:31 > 1:10:37He was insulted by every script because he was a much better actor.

1:10:37 > 1:10:41- Who is looking for Big Dick? - BOTH: He is.

1:10:41 > 1:10:48'I turned to the shooting script of the Carry On. If anything, it is worse than the previous version.

1:10:48 > 1:10:55'It is appalling. It lacks verbal wit. It lacks comic situation. It lacks any credible characters.

1:10:55 > 1:10:58'It is a Carry On.'

1:10:58 > 1:11:03Anybody who starts with Orson Welles must have a sense of what's possible.

1:11:03 > 1:11:10And then to finish up in, you know, Carry On Number 42 is not really a career move upwards.

1:11:10 > 1:11:12In 1971,

1:11:12 > 1:11:15six years after Loot,

1:11:15 > 1:11:22Williams returned to the theatre desperate to wipe out the memory of that flop and re-establish himself.

1:11:22 > 1:11:29He starred with Ingrid Bergman and Joss Ackland in Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion,

1:11:29 > 1:11:33which did good box office but had mixed reviews.

1:11:33 > 1:11:38Then came a bittersweet comedy, My Fat Friend. The play opened well.

1:11:38 > 1:11:46Williams' performance was much praised. He was ecstatic, as a letter he wrote at the time reveals.

1:11:46 > 1:11:51'The joy, the utter vindication of all the suffering and dreary days

1:11:51 > 1:11:59'when you see one rewarding notice which treats you seriously and talks not only about your comic persona

1:11:59 > 1:12:03'but about your ability to create pathos as well.'

1:12:03 > 1:12:10But even in a success, Williams couldn't prevent his comic persona from taking over.

1:12:10 > 1:12:17The play became for him a sort of straitjacket in which he wasn't allowed to break out and be himself

1:12:17 > 1:12:20and be as funny as he could be.

1:12:20 > 1:12:25What he wanted to do more than anything was to contact his audience.

1:12:25 > 1:12:29Contacting his audience meant only one thing.

1:12:29 > 1:12:35Kenneth Williams the comedy actor became Kenneth Williams, solo turn.

1:12:35 > 1:12:42We'd be in a duologue here, and perhaps they weren't laughing as they should do out there.

1:12:42 > 1:12:48Kenneth's getting very worried, so he leaves me and dances down in this little sidling way.

1:12:48 > 1:12:55I knew what was going to happen. He'd turn to the audience and say, "Hello. How are you?"

1:12:55 > 1:13:03The house would go up, and he was there for about four minutes. Little quips and jokes, laugh-building.

1:13:03 > 1:13:08He felt better. And so back he'd come as if nothing had happened.

1:13:08 > 1:13:12And he'd turn to me and he'd say, "Your turn."

1:13:14 > 1:13:20Williams left the production on the grounds of ill health, causing an early closure.

1:13:20 > 1:13:26- Same place?- Yes.- Apart from directing two Joe Orton plays in the '80s,

1:13:26 > 1:13:31he'd little contact with the theatre again. His career seemed stalled.

1:13:31 > 1:13:39When Round The Horne ended in 1969 the BBC had tried developing new TV and radio programmes around him,

1:13:39 > 1:13:44but most, like The Kenneth Williams Show, were short-lived.

1:13:44 > 1:13:48The high camp style was being done by others,

1:13:48 > 1:13:51as his agent would explain.

1:13:51 > 1:13:54'Peter Eade telephoned.

1:13:54 > 1:14:02'We talked about why there had been no offers of work. He said that the Grayson show is a crib of my stuff.'

1:14:02 > 1:14:07I shouted, "Cut off its tentacles!" Well, the lifeguard was deaf...

1:14:07 > 1:14:10'Inman is doing the same thing.'

1:14:10 > 1:14:13Yes, I'm free, Captain Peacock.

1:14:13 > 1:14:20'It hadn't hit me before. Of course! They've found other people to do it, and cheaper people, in every sense.'

1:14:20 > 1:14:25It's all done in the best possible taste.

1:14:25 > 1:14:32He was overtaken. He was furious with Kenny Everett. Kenny Everett went a bit further than Kenneth.

1:14:32 > 1:14:36I'm really wanted by big people... and so many times.

1:14:36 > 1:14:42There were people that sort of overtook Kenneth in that field,

1:14:42 > 1:14:46and towards the end he was a bit old-fashioned.

1:14:46 > 1:14:52- RAPIDLY:- I am applying for a job as a sports commentator. I am walking...

1:14:52 > 1:14:56The waspishness increased. He became more difficult.

1:14:56 > 1:15:01People were frightened of him. They couldn't find a vehicle for him.

1:15:01 > 1:15:04- How's that?- Very good indeed.

1:15:04 > 1:15:10Unfortunately, we don't have a vacancy for a sports commentator.

1:15:10 > 1:15:14I think he felt the shadows closing over him.

1:15:14 > 1:15:16Oh, are you kidding?

1:15:16 > 1:15:24But Williams held the shadows at bay once more. He began doing for the public what he'd been doing

1:15:24 > 1:15:30for years in private - making people laugh by talking about himself.

1:15:30 > 1:15:36The '70s and '80s saw the heyday of the TV chat show. Williams was king.

1:15:36 > 1:15:41- His way with words is legendary. - The most English of Englishmen.

1:15:41 > 1:15:46- A wasp with adenoids.- A brilliant talker, unfailingly funny.

1:15:46 > 1:15:49Hurry up! Stop dragging it out!

1:15:49 > 1:15:52- Shall we bring him on?- Please do.

1:15:52 > 1:15:54The sublime Mr Kenneth Williams.

1:15:54 > 1:15:57APPLAUSE

1:15:57 > 1:16:00Kenneth Williams.

1:16:00 > 1:16:05Mr Kenneth Williams. APPLAUSE

1:16:05 > 1:16:10'Kenneth Williams was God's gift to the talk show host.'

1:16:12 > 1:16:18He was a huge show-off, and he loved making people A: shocked, B: laugh.

1:16:18 > 1:16:25When I first worked with Maggie Smith we went to Fortnum and Mason. She was after a particular bra.

1:16:25 > 1:16:31A grand assistant in Fortnum's... It was heavy carpeting, soft pile.

1:16:31 > 1:16:33You hardly heard as you entered.

1:16:33 > 1:16:40She said, "I have that bra. Seven guineas." Maggie said, "Seven guineas for a bra?

1:16:40 > 1:16:42"Cheaper to have your tits off."

1:16:42 > 1:16:45He'd a fabulous memory for stories.

1:16:45 > 1:16:53He had a gift of invention - if he didn't have a good story, he'd make one up. And he was a wonderful mimic.

1:16:53 > 1:16:55I was in a dressing room.

1:16:55 > 1:17:02A knock at the door. I said, "Who is it?" "Noel." I thought it was the stage manager. "Piss off."

1:17:02 > 1:17:04Instead of which,

1:17:04 > 1:17:09the door opened and Noel Coward came in.

1:17:09 > 1:17:13I was sitting on this chamber pot.

1:17:13 > 1:17:16I had water with which I was cleaning myself.

1:17:16 > 1:17:23I shot up, and in shooting up I upset the po, and the water went all over the place.

1:17:23 > 1:17:27He said, "What on Earth are you doing?"

1:17:27 > 1:17:34I said, "Washing. I was told by the surgeon after my operation that I should never use toilet paper,

1:17:34 > 1:17:36"but always completely wash it."

1:17:36 > 1:17:44He said, "I do understand. Have you read my book Present Indicative? I discuss that operation - piles."

1:17:44 > 1:17:48And I said, "No, no. I didn't have that.

1:17:48 > 1:17:55"I didn't have that. No, my operation was for papili. I had papili, you see."

1:17:55 > 1:18:00And he said, "Papili? My dear, it's an island in the South Seas."

1:18:00 > 1:18:02And, in fact, it is.

1:18:02 > 1:18:08Williams didn't just tell stories. He used the chat show as a political platform.

1:18:08 > 1:18:12The idealistic young Labour voter had become a right-winger

1:18:12 > 1:18:18and, as strike action intensified in the mid-'70s, a union-basher.

1:18:18 > 1:18:23Yet they all get worked up over a couple of pound in their pay packet.

1:18:23 > 1:18:28If unions are really socialistic and care about their fellow man,

1:18:28 > 1:18:34why can't they march about something like that, instead of about a pound for themselves?

1:18:34 > 1:18:42- You don't do a job just for what you get. You do it because you want to do it well.- Kenneth, that's crap.

1:18:42 > 1:18:45I mean, I'm sorry. I really...

1:18:45 > 1:18:49- I've never been so insulted! - LAUGHTER

1:18:49 > 1:18:53Williams' outburst caused a stir.

1:18:53 > 1:19:00He was invited back to argue his case with a heavyweight adversary, trade union leader Jimmy Reid.

1:19:00 > 1:19:07Williams couldn't resist the challenge and entered the contest determined to come out on top.

1:19:07 > 1:19:12'Kenneth was competitive. He regarded anybody else on the show with him'

1:19:12 > 1:19:17as somebody who wanted to steal his thunder. He'd put them down.

1:19:17 > 1:19:23'I said to Kenneth, "Give me a bit of sound level," before the show started.'

1:19:23 > 1:19:29He stood up and declaimed this poem to the assembled staff

1:19:29 > 1:19:35and looked challengingly at Jimmy Reid, who said, "Was that Yeats?"

1:19:35 > 1:19:39Kenneth said, "As a matter of fact, it was, yes."

1:19:39 > 1:19:46I said to Jimmy Reid, "Jimmy, you give me a bit of voice-over." He said, "I've got a poem for you."

1:19:46 > 1:19:51He did this extraordinary poem. He said to Kenneth, "Who wrote that?"

1:19:51 > 1:19:55Kenneth said, "I didn't know." Jimmy said, "I did."

1:19:55 > 1:20:01I've never seen Kenneth as discomfited during an interview as then.

1:20:01 > 1:20:06'I think it's the worst performance he ever did on a talk show.'

1:20:06 > 1:20:13The working man's caught in the same trap. "Ask more for your house. You won't get it unless you ask more."

1:20:13 > 1:20:18So he's caught in the same trap, the ordinary man who owns a house.

1:20:18 > 1:20:25- Not particularly.- He is. - I'm telling you. - He's caught in a trap because...

1:20:25 > 1:20:31Talk show performances mattered to Williams. He was doing little else.

1:20:31 > 1:20:36In 1979 he played in the last of the Carry On films, with few regrets.

1:20:36 > 1:20:42- I will make you love me if it's the last thing I do!- Aaargh!

1:20:42 > 1:20:50As the Carry On films reached their climax, they became caricatures of themselves, and coarsened.

1:20:50 > 1:20:55The last, which Kenneth thought was appalling, was Carry On Emmanuelle.

1:20:57 > 1:21:00He was embarrassed to have done it

1:21:00 > 1:21:04but he did it out of loyalty to the team.

1:21:04 > 1:21:06Aaargh!

1:21:06 > 1:21:10HIS SCREAM FADES

1:21:10 > 1:21:14Film work had dried up, stage work had dried up.

1:21:14 > 1:21:20Kenneth Williams Presents on TV, or whatever it might be, that had gone.

1:21:20 > 1:21:27He had become that most forlorn of creatures - a person who existed because of game shows and talk shows.

1:21:27 > 1:21:34So from an enormous potential, he had reduced himself, boxed himself into a corner.

1:21:34 > 1:21:39In a way, the same thing, I think, happened with his private life.

1:21:39 > 1:21:45He alienated his friends as the years went by by outrageous behaviour.

1:21:45 > 1:21:48I remember being in the sitting room

1:21:48 > 1:21:53and he'd kept the table on a roar for hours but he had to go further.

1:21:53 > 1:21:58He dropped his trousers. "The bum is hanging down in pleats." Exposing it.

1:21:58 > 1:22:03I think in terms of relationships he'd painted himself into a corner,

1:22:03 > 1:22:06and fewer people were phoning back.

1:22:06 > 1:22:13The one relationship that had always worked was also disintegrating, as old age took its toll on Louie.

1:22:13 > 1:22:16'I'm virtually a prisoner,

1:22:16 > 1:22:19'chained to this elderly derelict,

1:22:19 > 1:22:26'reminded of geriatric problems - the stained mattress, the cigarette burns on carpets and chairs,

1:22:26 > 1:22:29'the conversational repetition.'

1:22:29 > 1:22:32Kenneth himself wasn't a well man.

1:22:32 > 1:22:39Stomach ulcers, piles, bowel disorders - all contributed to physical pain he found hard to take.

1:22:39 > 1:22:45If something is misery-making, turn it. Talk about it. Make it amusing.

1:22:45 > 1:22:53Make it creative. Explain why the illness - the malaise - occurs. And you can do that with comedy.

1:22:53 > 1:22:58He was taking things that were personal and painful to him -

1:22:58 > 1:23:05his ailments, his strange voice, his curious manner - and almost sending them up. Well, not almost.

1:23:05 > 1:23:12He was inviting you to laugh at him while telling you something true about himself.

1:23:12 > 1:23:15"Mr Williams, you have...

1:23:15 > 1:23:18"a spastic colon."

1:23:18 > 1:23:22- LAUGHTER - I thought I'd come into money.

1:23:22 > 1:23:26But he would pay a price for this public exposure.

1:23:26 > 1:23:33'The fact is, on these chat shows I've been eating at myself for years, just living off body fat.

1:23:33 > 1:23:39'People say, "All he does is tell those old stories we've heard before

1:23:39 > 1:23:43' "with his usual lavatory gags and his camp blether.

1:23:43 > 1:23:49- ' "Pathetic." '- He felt he was excavating himself in chat shows -

1:23:49 > 1:23:54giving chunks of himself away. He felt there wasn't much left of him.

1:23:54 > 1:24:00Williams' diaries record he'd mused on suicide from his earliest days.

1:24:00 > 1:24:05Late in life, the idea of putting an end to his suffering obsessed him.

1:24:05 > 1:24:11- What? Like killing yourself? - Yes, I put stuff down about suicide.

1:24:11 > 1:24:17How one would go about it. The best method. Looking back, it's often amusing.

1:24:17 > 1:24:24- Why would you want to kill yourself? - One would think it at the time because of a low state of morale.

1:24:24 > 1:24:31One does write something down which is practical in terms of how to go about it.

1:24:31 > 1:24:36'Counted my capsules of poison. I have over 30, enough to kill me.

1:24:36 > 1:24:40'Just have to work out the time and the place.'

1:24:40 > 1:24:47A fortnight before he died I saw him near Broadcasting House. We stood on a traffic island. He was distressed,

1:24:47 > 1:24:54and he looked grey. Kenneth's face in repose, sometimes, was an incredibly tragic face.

1:24:54 > 1:24:57He would go very sallow and...

1:24:57 > 1:25:04I was preoccupied by my own things. I remember thinking, "I should ring him."

1:25:04 > 1:25:06But I didn't.

1:25:06 > 1:25:12On March 21st, 1988, Williams' diary says that he attempted an overdose,

1:25:12 > 1:25:16but after taking two barbiturates couldn't go through with it.

1:25:16 > 1:25:21On April 14th, he wrote what was to be his final entry in his diary.

1:25:21 > 1:25:24'Had meal with Lou at 5.30.

1:25:24 > 1:25:29'Saw the news. Watched the dreary saga of murder and mayhem.

1:25:29 > 1:25:34'By 6.30, pain in the back was pulsating as it's never done before.

1:25:34 > 1:25:37'So this, plus the stomach trouble,

1:25:37 > 1:25:40'combines to torture me.

1:25:40 > 1:25:43'Oh, what's the bloody point?'

1:25:46 > 1:25:52Next day, Louie went into her son's flat and found him dead in his bed.

1:25:52 > 1:26:00The comedy actor Kenneth Williams has died at the age of 62. He was found dead at his flat in London...

1:26:00 > 1:26:06He died from an overdose of barbiturates, causing speculation in the press.

1:26:06 > 1:26:12But the coroner couldn't be sure it wasn't an accident and recorded an open verdict.

1:26:12 > 1:26:19I believe that he took his life. I don't know that for sure, but I believe so.

1:26:19 > 1:26:24He... He could not find... anything worthy in himself at all.

1:26:24 > 1:26:27He felt that his life...was dross.

1:26:27 > 1:26:31SHERIDAN MORLEY: At the end of the day,

1:26:31 > 1:26:35he died of frustration - sexual, social, theatrical, professional.

1:26:35 > 1:26:38He wasn't doing what he wanted to do.

1:26:38 > 1:26:43Left neatly stacked in Williams' bookcase was his final legacy -

1:26:43 > 1:26:51the 41 volumes that documented his innermost thoughts about himself and everyone who came into his orbit,

1:26:51 > 1:26:53candid and uncensored.

1:26:53 > 1:27:01- You don't want them published after your death?- Mm.- I'd have thought you'd want your diaries published

1:27:01 > 1:27:05- after your death. - Oh, I see. After death?

1:27:05 > 1:27:11- Yes.- I beg your pardon. After death, yes. One wouldn't mind that at all.

1:27:11 > 1:27:13Wouldn't you worry about being catty?

1:27:13 > 1:27:18I wouldn't care at all then. One would be out of the way!

1:27:18 > 1:27:24I wouldn't mind them saying, "He was a rotter." I wouldn't mind if I was out of the way.

1:27:24 > 1:27:30He knew that he'd been a strange and dislocated personality all his life.

1:27:30 > 1:27:35Since a child, he'd known that. He'd never managed quite to puzzle it out.

1:27:35 > 1:27:43But I think he wanted to leave the evidence so that it was there on the table for us to see and sort out.

1:27:43 > 1:27:50- IMPASSIONED SINGING - # Ou est la plume de ma tante?

1:27:50 > 1:27:53LAUGHTER

1:27:53 > 1:27:56# C'est la vie

1:27:56 > 1:28:01# Ma crepe suzette... #

1:28:01 > 1:28:06I feel sad for him that his life wasn't as happy for him

1:28:06 > 1:28:09as he made it for all of us.

1:28:09 > 1:28:14As soon as you saw him, as soon as you heard him, your heart lifted,

1:28:14 > 1:28:19you broke into a smile and sometimes into a belly laugh.

1:28:19 > 1:28:26He had the gift of creating laughter, but he didn't have the gift of creating it for himself.

1:28:26 > 1:28:28# Par Avion

1:28:28 > 1:28:32# Petula Clark

1:28:34 > 1:28:37# Fiancee, ensemble

1:28:37 > 1:28:40# Lorgnette

1:28:40 > 1:28:42# Lingerie

1:28:42 > 1:28:46# Et deux toilettes

1:28:46 > 1:28:52# Gauloises cigarettes

1:28:52 > 1:28:55# Entourage

1:28:55 > 1:28:59# Ma crepe suzette... #

1:28:59 > 1:29:04Bye-bye, and thank you. It's been really wonderful for you to have me.