Kenneth Williams Parkinson: The Interviews

What are you doing it for? You're not saying, "I want another pound."

You're saying, "I want to do the work better." You do the job because you want to do it well.

Kenneth, I think that's crap.

-I'm sorry. I really...

-I've never been so insulted!

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

That was a friendly encounter with Kenneth Williams in 1973.

In those early days of our professional relationship, we DIDN'T like each other.

In his published diaries Kenneth Williams states,

"I was asked if I'd go to Thames TV to chat with Michael Parkinson. Certainly not! North-Country nit."

We met when he was a panellist on What's My Line? and I was a guest.

He wrote in his diary, "The first celebrity was Michael Parkinson, whom I loathe." It was mutual.

At first, I couldn't stand him. So why was he a regular guest on the show?

One reason was he loved showing off. And we loved giving him the chance to do so.

He was camp, funny and entertaining.

Here's an example of Kenneth Williams at his very best, from 1980.

The other guests are the American humorist and songwriter Tom Lehrer and Robin Ray.

BAND PLAYS "You Must Have Been A Beautiful Baby"

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

-Since we last talked to you, you've published this successful book called Acid Drops.

-Yes.

-It's your collection of verbal put-downs.

-Yes. I thought Tart Retorts.

But someone said, "Acid Drops is better." The tartness is in the acidity. Drop is about put-downs.

-So I thought it was a better title.

-But why did you pick that particular art form?

Well, I picked it because... I'd done a lot of those Quote, Unquote shows.

Gyles Brandreth, who was editing this book, said, "You enjoy the malignant thrust and rude retort.

"And you deliver them with a degree of relish. Why don't we do a book about them?"

That's how it all occurred. I'd gone along to Quote, Unquote with my various bits and pieces.

The producer always said, "Bring a few. What you think is funny may not be broadcastable."

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-So one always had to have spares.

I remember taking along to him one which I thought was a lovely one.

It was true. Stanley Baxter told me he'd heard two men in a London club.

One said, "I've just come from Evita."

The other one said, "You don't look very brown!"

I thought that was marvellous. But they didn't want it, so I put that in my book.

And I put others in the diaries. I've kept them since I was 14.

When did you discover your talent for what you call the "malignant thrust"?

I suppose because I've so often been a victim, you see, of aggression.

And I found very early on in life... I'm a small person.

I found early in life that if you didn't have a retort to put down people who were rude and bullying,

-you couldn't do it in any other way. I couldn't do it physically.

-As a schoolboy?

Yes, that was the first occasion. I used the tongue to be vituperative.

-But the malignant thrust often gets you a wallop. Did you need a bodyguard?

-I always had one handy.

-LAUGHTER

-Yes, I cultivated the friendship of very big people. And...

I got very well in with the captain of the school football team and the cricket team, all those big chaps.

They'd always bash people for me.

I did it in the army as well. I kept in the area of protection of those sort of people.

In compiling the book, did you come across any one section of...

..of life in which the put-down was more...

..rich an area than others? I mean, is it, I don't know...theatre?

-Is it politics?

-It covers almost everything.

I love that FE Smith one where, after a lengthy preamble in front of the judge,

the judge said, "Your arguments are very lengthy, and frankly, Mr Smith, I'm none the wiser."

He said, "No, my lord, but doubtless better-informed."

-LAUGHTER

-That is a marvellous put-down.

But it's essentially erudite. It belongs to the legal system.

In the book there's a marvellous collection of quotes about theatrical characters.

There are several that I wanted to do and afterwards I said, "Oh, I forgot!"

That'll have to be in the next edition. They're having a reprint, incidentally,

because they've sold them all. And one that I really would have loved to have been in...

It's the essence of theatre. It was told me by Jeremy Swan who knew the man in charge of this company.

Robert Helpmann was doing a tour of this ballet, Midsummer Night's Dream... He was playing Oberon.

They played it in a vast sports arena. It was floodlit.

Every dancer was given rooms which were essentially for sports people.

They gave Robert Helpmann what they thought was the best room the umpire's room.

When the man came for the half hour call, he didn't get any answer.

He went in and found in this umpire's room, Robert Helpmann on a chair on the table!

With a mirror against the one naked lightbulb, doing this elaborate eye make-up which was green and gold.

And he said, "Are you all right?"

And Robert Helpmann said, "I'm fine, but God knows how these umpires manage!"

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It conveys that wonderful sense of theatre.

People who are in the theatre imagine, do they not, that the world revolves about THAT area

and not about any other?

Edith Evans was comparable. She had this extraordinary ability to rise above any adversity.

After Gentle Jack there was terrible booing and she said to me, "Well, I heard ONE bravo."

I said, "No, that was 'Go home!'"

She said, "How very rude." When we came out of the theatre she said to me, "Did they give you any notes?"

I said, "Yes. Did they give you any?"

She said, "Binky said

"'Hardy Amies has designed very regal costumes YOU should look equally regal in them.'

She said, "Is that justified?" I said, "No. Any criticism of your deportment is impertinence."

-And she said, "Yes. You're a very pleasant young man."

-LAUGHTER

"There's no reason why the right girl shouldn't come along." Which she saw as the reward for virtue.

Then we got back to the hotel where we were staying.

We were the only two. Everyone else had dined. It was 11 o'clock at night.

But these two tin plates were over a bit of cold ham and lettuce. We sat in the corner of the empty room

and an old fart who was the night porter, who was also deputising as waiter,

came in and said to Dame Edith, "Your partner in crime's had her grub."

Her partner in crime was her adviser in spiritual matters, who had accompanied her on the tour.

She was a Christian Scientist and would not take any medicines,

but believed spiritual faith would resolve illness. He said, "Your partner in crime's had her grub.

"But she said you might fancy a drop of wine. Do you?"

She said, "A half bottle of Beaujolais would not come amiss."

He said, "I have a drop in the sideboard."

-He bent over to get it and then broke wind with alarming ferocity.

-HYSTERICAL LAUGHTER

It rang out appallingly. And she said to me, "This place has gone off terribly."

APPLAUSE

And I thought that revealed great composure and presence of mind.

And it's something, I think, which is...it does run through theatre.

I recall, when I first worked with Maggie Smith in television,

I said to her, "You are very relaxed." The head was so, so relaxed.

She said, "That's because I've had so many fillings my head's top heavy with lead."

We went to Fortnum & Mason where she was after a bra.

A very grand assistant in Fortnum's, which was heavy carpeting

you hardly heard as you entered

this woman said the bra cost 7 guineas. And Maggie said, "7 guineas for a bra?!

-"Cheaper to have your tits off."

-LAUGHTER

-The place...was in uproar.

They'd never heard anyone being quite so forthright before in that sort of establishment.

One of the fascinations of doing the Parkinson Show was in putting together combinations of people.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. When it did, the result was memorable.

In 1972, we brought together Sir John Betjeman, Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams.

Now, THEY liked each other. But Kenneth and I were having problems.

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

I was dying to go to the loo back there and I kept thinking, "I'll miss a really important bit."

And they said to me, "You must stand by." I was glued to it, watching.

-I'd like to ask all of you about critics.

-I loathe them. I've said it so often.

I've always said they're like the eunuchs in the harem.

They see it done every night but they can't do it themselves.

APPLAUSE

-They're absolutely useless.

-But they're not always, Ken.

Always there's a grain of truth. That's what's so unnerving.

-Hardly ever.

-Oh, Ken...

-And even if there were, Maggie, I would say this

they might be saying something true, but they've hardly ever earned the right to say it. That's the point.

You see, people like these would-be doyens.

They write in Sunday newspapers and look upon themselves as augurs of taste as if from Olympian heights.

I could show you cuttings that name people as the best...

One critic said, "The best in the West, nay N-A-Y the world."

And went on to name people that have trod a path into oblivion. I've not heard of them since.

-They're all useless, you see?

-Yes.

-Half the time they're not doing what a critic should do.

-That is communicating love and affection for his subject.

-I agree.

-They're turning a phrase to earn THEM a reputation.

-I don't think you can lump them all together.

There ARE some serious ones. And you CAN learn things and sometimes change.

You would say, to put it crudely, pleasuring themselves rather than...

-They've got a rotten job. I admit that.

-I agree. Awful.

-It's a very frustrating job.

Shaw said a lot of them were frustrated playwrights. A lot of them are frustrated actors probably.

But Russell Lovell said that there's something ridiculous about criticism.

-What is good is good without our saying so.

-Yes.

-That exposes it.

It also brings out the truth of what you said that communicating enthusiasm is what you should do.

There are certain people that CAN do it. I've read Rex Reed, those profiles in the New Yorker.

He DOES communicate an atmosphere.

You feel the atmosphere of the entertainment he enjoyed. And he infects YOU.

And this happens with good teaching.

A good teacher, if he takes you into the realm of English literature...

MY teacher infected me with the spirit of poetry, mostly the Romantics.

Probably it was my melancholic leaning at the time. Shelley, Keats, Byron, he infected me with them.

-Exactly.

-He did it with love and affection.

The criticism that matters in this sense is THAT kind of thing,

NOT the kind of thing where they're making a headline,

something catty or malignant, which lingers in the memory for a day or so.

-Do you get melancholic about criticism?

-Yes. I can't bear it.

There was a time when I longed to see my name in print. Now I see it with dread.

-That's sad.

-Does it really affect you?

-I believe everything that's said against me is true

and anything that's said in my favour is flattery. I never believe...

-..that I'm any good at all.

-I...

-All artists need the reassurance of their own worth.

They haven't got it within. This is one of the paradoxes of all art.

Though artists may appear to be people of power, the reverse is true.

They're the most vulnerable people in the world. When I met my idol, Sir Godfrey Tearle, he told me...

He was giving a marvellous performance at the Haymarket. I was in his dressing room.

I couldn't find words to say how marvellous his performance was and he said to me, "I've been downcast

"because a little boy of 10 said my trousers were too high and my socks were showing."

-THAT worried him.

-Can we talk a bit now...

..about something Sir John was talking about earlier? About the business of preservation.

Is it something that concerns you? Are you on Sir John's side?

Yes, I am. I see the problem in another way because I have two brothers and they're both architects.

They say that if we go on keeping things standing, what else can we build?

I suppose our problem here is that we are just a small island.

But the examples of planning blight,

things like the dreadfulness of the Elephant and Castle, which used to be a place of humanity

and is now a concrete desert... The Euston Centre is the same.

-Frightful.

-This sort of thing...

-And Tottenham Court Road...

-Exactly.

-The Labour government could have...

-LAUGHTER

-Yeah! Could've made them into flats.

They left the whole thing standing empty. It's a national scandal.

-The office development permit was introduced by...Lord... The man who was foreign secretary.

-Oh, Lord...

-Um...um...

-George Brown. He stopped offices being built.

But only in the last two years of the government.

The first act of a socialist government should be to stop all that

and say, "Homes are the most important thing."

All this crap about having youth clubs and theatres built.

Cultural activities are no good if you've no home to go to. We need homes...

-On the ground.

-Precisely!

AUDIENCE APPLAUDS

-That makes me very angry. Doesn't it you, to pass a skyscraper empty?

-I absolutely agree with you.

Yet they all go on strike for a couple of pounds in their pay packet.

Why can't they...? If the unions really care about their fellow man, why can't they march about that?

Instead of another pound for themselves! Why not a few pounds for someone who's really hard up?

-That's not the unions' problem.

-APPLAUSE

-I've got support.

-Oh, well...

-It's not the unions' fault that...

-What is the statue outside the TUC?

-It depicts a man, doesn't it, helping up another man who's on the ground?

-Yes.

-That statue symbolises what the TUC stands for.

-Of course.

-Right.

Well, when a union jeopardises the work of their fellow men...

If you stop trains, people can't get to their work, can they?

So, in doing what you want for yourself, you're jeopardising your fellow men.

Why can't you work in concert with your fellow men?

-That statue represents helping, not hindering.

-Because it might be...

..take two workers, that one fellow is a lot worse-off than the other worker.

-They're not all equal. If they were, there'd be no problem.

-It comes down to morality.

You don't just work for another pound!

I took my job at £3 10/ a week, playing small parts... I came out the army '47, that's what I got.

Digs were 25 bob all in. The rest was for soap and fags. And a drop of Harpic! I did my own cleaning.

But I saved and, because I wanted to do the job well, I got another rep fortnightly, then monthly rep.

I did seven years in the provinces.

You're not saying, "I want another pound." You're saying, "I want to do the work better."

I was brought up with that morality. You do the job because you want to do it well.

Kenneth, I think that's crap.

-I mean, I'm sorry... I really...

-I've never been so insulted!

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-YOU mustn't laugh.

-Don't take it to heart.

-Whose side are you on?!

It's all very well you saying that. All of us here are in jobs that are creative,

where, with talent, you can get to the top and have a handsome living.

You can't tell me that someone who's putting door handles on a car for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week

isn't going to get frustrated and doesn't deserve an extra quid. Of course his work ethic is money.

-He doesn't get the satisfaction from the job that we get.

-True.

-You are...talking... I...

His inference is that the man who puts door knobs on has a monotonous job.

What do you think doing something night after night...? I'm doing this play...

I've said it so many times I'm beginning to wonder what it means.

-Everyone does seem to think that our work is glamorous. Why?

-It's not.

It's self-discipline and going on night after night, and doing it as well as you can.

If I have to stick door knobs on I've painted my own walls I want to do it WELL.

The guy who goes on strike is not earning your salary.

What about the period I had no success? I spent 7 years in the provinces. That wasn't successful.

No, but there was always... Because you had a talent in an area where talent pays off, you had a horizon.

-Do you want a world where every job leads to some marvellous end?

-Yes!

-All jobs can't be like that.

-Exactly.

-That's the problem.

-But...

-You must allow people their frustrations.

-No, they must accept their limitations.

-We get no pension.

-That's a superman argument.

-It isn't. Voltaire said every man must dig in his own garden.

-Sir John, can we have a calm word?

-AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-By the way, do you know what Voltaire's last words were?

-No.

The priest said, "Will you now make your peace and renounce the devil?"

And he said, "It's a bit late in the day to be making enemies."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-Sir John, were you going to say something?

-I've forgotten.

-And I don't blame you at all.

I don't blame you! Let's talk about poetry.

Some of his lines... We were talking about you the other day.

-You weren't there.

-LAUGHTER

-Maggie was quoting a thing of yours.

-Phone for the fish knives, Norman.

-That poem.

The one I love is the prayer of the lady about the air raids.

"Lord, keep beneath thy special care 149 Cadogan Square."

-And "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough."

-Don't mention that!

-All the trouble I got for that.

-Did you?

-When I was a prep school master on 30 quid a term.

-All in, of course. It didn't leave you much for cigarettes.

-No. Nor Harpic!

-No.

What kind of problem did it create?

You can't libel a corporation.

You can libel an individual, likethe borough engineer, butnotaconglomerate body.

They've always been very generous to me in Slough considering.

I was about 19 when I wrote that.

I'm now...goodness knows how old! 65, nearly 66.

Why it should be remembered, I can't think.

In those days, everyone was horrified by the new tendencies of things coming...

We could see the evil world of tall skyscrapers and nothingness that we've been describing arriving.

And that was what the anger of that poem was about.

And the lack of consideration for the individual as a separate person. I must go on for a second.

Why I like actors very much is because they're givers, not takers.

And it's the takers we're always fighting against.

-You have to spend your whole time every day being en rapport with the audience.

-Yes, what one poet called,

"the eternal reciprocity of tears." To understand comedy is to understand that.

The pathos has to be inherent in a comedy performance. If you haven't got it, you haven't got any comedy.

There's a poem by Haliburton about "Caesar must die in them. Their lives must be rehearsed."

Kenneth, we are running out of time.

-It's a disgrace.

-Oh!

-I asked for over an hour last time.

-LAUGHTER

I was sandwiched in for a few minutes. A disgrace!

-You make good use of those few minutes! Kenneth, you were going to read...

-I've got it here.

-We're not flattering. We ARE Betjeman fans.

-We were talking about this earlier.

We're going to read this together.

-This... Do you want to tell them the title?

-The title is Death In Leamington.

-It's one of the first poems you wrote.

-First poems I got published.

She died in the upstairs bedroom

By the light of the evening star that shone through the plate glass window from over Leamington Spa

Beside her the lonely crochet lay patiently and unstirred

But the fingers that would have worked it were dead as the spoken word

Nurse came in with the tea-things, Breast high 'mid stands and chairs

But Nurse was alone with her own little soul and the things were alone with theirs

She bolted the big, round window She let the blinds unroll

She set a match to the mantle She covered the fire with coal

"Tea!", she said in a tiny voice "Wake up, it's nearly five!"

Oh, chintzy, chintzy cheeriness

Half dead and half alive.

Do you know that the stucco is peeling? Do you know that the heart will stop?

From those yellow Italianate arches do you hear the plaster drop?

Nurse looked at the silent bedstead, at the grey, decaying face

As the calm of a Leamington evening drifted into the place

She moved the table of bottles away from the bed to the wall

And, tiptoeing gently over the stairs, Turned down the gas in the hall.

That's beautiful.

-APPLAUSE

-Thank you.

-Oh, how nice you do it.

-It's lovely.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-You enjoyed that?

-It's a lovely poem.

After a few more shows with Kenneth, the relationship improved. In the end, we got on fine.

I admired his talent and felt sad that he gave the impression of going through life unfulfilled,

both as an entertainer and a person.

We've seen why he was popular on talk shows. He needed little prompting to do a party piece.

-FRENCH ACCENT

-My next number is a song of love.

It is about two people who are how you say? crossed in love.

He love 'er and she love 'im.

But they cannot be married...

..because they are how you say? 'usband and wife.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

It is entitled "Ma Crepe Suzette" which means a flaming hot dish.

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

-And so is Suzette.

-PIANO STRIKES UP

-TO THE TUNE OF "Auld Lang Syne" #

-Honi soit qui mal y pense

-#

-Faites vos jeux Reconnaissance

-#

-'Ammersmith Palais de danse

-#

-Badinage Ma crepe Suzette

-#

-Double entendre Restaurant

-#

-Jacques Cousteau Yves St Laurent

-#

-Ou est la plume de ma tante?

-#

-C'est la vie Ma crepe Suzette

-#

-Corsage Massage

-#

-Frere Ja-a-a-acques

-#

-Salon Pont d'Avignon

-#

-Petula Cla-a-a-a-ark

-#

-Fiancee Ensemble Lorgnette

-#

-Lingerie Eau de toilette

-#

-Gauloises cigarettes

-#

-Entourage Ma crepe Suzette

-#

-Citroen Mirage Caravelle

-#

-Hors-d'oeuvre Brut Et Chanel

-#

-Chaise longue Sacha Distel

-#

-Fuselage Ma crepe Suzette

-#

-Pince-nez Bidet...

-#

-LAUGHTER #

-Commissionaire

-#

-Mon repos Brigitte Bardot

-#

-Jeux Sans Frontieres!

-#

-It's A Knockout, innit?

-LAUGHTER

-The French, I mean, not the song.

-#

-Faux pas Grand prix Espionage

-#

-Gruyere Camembert Fromage

-#

-Mayonnaise All-night gara-a-a-age

-#

-RSVP

-#

-Ma crepe Suzette.

-#

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

SHOUTS OF "More!"

That was from a show werecorded in 1979.

My favourite moments with Williams were when he displayed his talent for accents and anecdotes.

I first interviewed him in 1972 and he was eager to show off to his new audience.

The other guests were the late Patrick Campbell and Frank Muir, whom God preserve.

-You've worked with some great ladies of the theatre.

-Yes.

-Dame Edith.

Yes. Edith, I was told on good authority afterwards, said, "Why have you cast Kenneth Williams?"

She was told, "He'll be very good." She said, "But he's got a peculiar voice."

-LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

-But I haven't, have I?

-No.

There's nothing peculiar about it.

Then I did that thing with Bergman. She was fascinating.

I found all these women... like Martita Hunt who I did Paradiso with...

People said to me to be careful because they were formidable. I found they were charming.

Guinness helped me out marvellously. In the brothel scene I was to say, "What a night I've had!"

In the dressing room I'd unzipped the flies because the trousers were tight.

I went on and I forgot to do them up. I came on and he kept covering me

"It's very good to see you."

and playing the scene with me behind him. I thought, "This is a bit much."

When we came into the wings, I said, "You fronted me." He said, "But your flies." I said, "Oh, dear."

And he said, "Always remember before you go on stage, blow your nose and check your flies."

Marvellous advice.

What about accents? Have you come to any conclusions about accents? What shapes them?

It's a lot to do with climate. The northern countries use the mouth so much.

The German umlaut Ich weiss nicht these sorts of sounds, and the Scots with their "ch".

The mouth is used much more in the North than it is in the East China and Japan

where the lips hardly move and it's all coming from up there.

-The French are sort of...nasal...

-HE MUMBLES IN A FRENCH ACCENT

I think the climate has a lot to do with that.

Plus the fact that you get these curious idiosyncrasies.

The fact that the generous "r" is so prevalent in the West Country.

The Americans sailed from Plymouth.

I think that's why the Americans have got those "darned lovely rrrs".

In the West Country they still roll their r's. Tremendously generous vowels, aren't they?

Whereas the English governing accent is not at all generous.

Abominably clipped. "My secretary." All you hear is "sec".

The French say a-bom-i-na-able. You get the whole thing given you.

The English middle-class one is frightfully pinched. Do-come-in-and-meet-Muriel.

It's so incredibly tight-arsed. You think, "She should let herself go!"

Kenneth Williams died in 1988. He was 62.

In 40 years as an entertainer, he gave an enormous amount of pleasure

as an actor, broadcaster and comedian. On the last Parkinson Show of all, recorded in 1982,

we asked him to recreate Rambling Sid Rumpole, from that wonderful radio series Round The Horn.

That's what we close with tonight.

This is the last of the current series. I hope you've enjoyed looking back with me. Goodnight.

APPLAUSE

-WEST-COUNTRY ACCENT

-Well, my dearies, I've come up with a lugubrious lyric

about a lovesick swain singing to his love beneath her bower.

She has a very low bower, but that is because of the prevailing winds.

And it goes after this fashion.

-TO THE TUNE OF "Darling Clementine" #

-Joe, he was a young cord wangler Monging greebles did he go

-#

-And he loved a bogler's daughter By the name of Chiswick Flo...

-#

-LAUGHTER #

-Light she was and like a grusset And her gander parts were fine

-#

-But she sneered at his cord wangle

-#

-As it hung upon the line

-#

-So he stole a woggler's moolie For to make a wedding ring

-#

-But the Bow Street runners caught him

-#

-And the judge said, "You will swing."

-#

-Oh! O-Oh! Oh, they hung him...

-# LAUGHTER

-#

-Oh, they hung him by the postern...

-# LAUGHTER

-#

-Nailed his moolie to the fence

-#

-For to warn all young cord wanglers That it was a grave offence

-#

-There's a moral to this story

-#

-Though your cord wangle be poor, Keep your hands off others' moolies,

-#

-For it is against the law.

-#

Subtitles by Audrey Flynn BBC Scotland 1995