Warming Up

Monday 28th August 2006

I had hoped to spend today going to see all the shows I had promised, but failed to see, but instead sat around in a catatonic stupor unable to move out of my seat. In the afternoon I watched most of “Carry On Abroad”, possibly the worst Carry On film ever made (not including “Carry On Columbus” or the forthcoming “Carry On London” which I thankfully turned down the chance to appear in). It struck me as ironic that I was only a few minutes walk away from the greatest arts festival in the world and yet I chose to stay indoors witnessing one of the low points of artistic endeavour, but really I had no choice: my legs could not lift me from the sofa. I was even too tired to put on one of the DVDs that I had brought with me. I could have been watching “Capote”, but that would have been too much effort. The time was not right. Instead I sat there on the sofa deconstructing the film with my equally petulantly hungover ex-dance partner Sarah Kendall. The weakness of the script, the tiredness of the performances, the spectacular laziness of the puns and double entendres. Sarah enjoyed the mistaking of the word “bum” for the word “sun” – speculating that this might be the only time in history such a misunderstanding might have taken place. She also questioned whether it was likely that a brotherhood of monks would go away on holiday together and if they did would they choose a package deal with a group of regular holidaymakers. I wondered if anyone had questioned this at the script-writing stage, but it seems that no-one questioned anything. One of the main characters was a bloke who as far as I am aware has never appeared in any of the other Carry Ons. It was a part that might have usually been played by Sid James, but strangely Sid James was already in the film playing a character that would usually be played by Sid James. I liked the way that this new pseudo Sid James character would take any opportunity to infer that something that had just been said was actually a reference to Barbara Windsor’s breasts (eg “What a pair of beauties!” said by someone not referring to Barbara Windsor’s breasts “They certainly are!” said by him while looking at Barbara Windsor’s breasts). Now obviously this is normal Carry On fayre, but what I enjoyed was that Barbara would always laugh as if the joke was delightful and had surprised her. Every single time. You’d think that after a week of being on holiday with a man (who didn’t even have the ramshackle charm of Sid James) Barbara Windsor might have said, “Yes, that’s right. I do have quite large breasts. Well spotted. Do you have to refer to this on every possible occasion? Could you not, for once, just let a second go by without referring to them or how you would like to have sex with me? Or compliment me on something else? I have plenty of other things on my body that come in twos, eg my ears. Why not mention them? Or say something nice about my personality”
But no, she just Carried On laughing.
I would love to see a Carry On film that had an hour of naughty silly jokes and then for the last half an hour had characters questioning each other over why they found these constant references to sex so amusing. There’s almost such a moment of forlorn sadness towards the end of this film, where the frigid June Whitfield finally decides she wants to have sex with the frustrated Kenneth Connor. He gets all excited, then a dark look of realisation crosses his face as he says, “I’ve forgotten what you do.” Had they held the camera on his miserable expression for another thirty seconds this might have been the funniest and saddest moment in cinematic history, but they quickly cut away to some people rolling around in some water or something. It would be nice if Carry On films got a bit more existential.
Because ultimately these later films in the franchise are somewhat tragic, not just because of the paucity of ideas, but also because the actors cannot disguise their embarrassment and regret at having to Carry On Trotting Out This Shit. It’s awful to see them operating at a tenth of their former glory and also such a waste to not have them putting their talents to something more worthwhile. This is made all the more pertinent by the fact that nearly everyone in these films is now dead. Sid James had only two or three years to live when he made this film. What a shame he wasted his last few months on such utter crap, rather than doing something good or just lying on a beach enjoying being alive. In a sense this subtext does start to make the film a bit more interesting and deep. But ultimately it was a waste of everyone’s time. A waste of the actors’ time in performing it, a waste of the viewer’s time in watching it and now a waste of your time in analysing it.
I decided I wasn’t going to go and see anything or hang out at the Fringe bars. My festival was over and I slightly regretted not going home today. Though my afternoon on the sofa acted as a nice decompression chamber between the fantasy of the Fringe and the reality of the outside world. It was only later that I realised how physically and emotionally spent I was, when I went round to a friend’s for some dinner and fell asleep on the sofa. It was only 9.30. For the last few days I have been running on adrenaline and now that everything was over my body was ready to shut down.
I am looking forward to going home, but will have fond memories of this year. I hope I can make it back for my twentieth anniversary next year. Thanks to all those of you who came to see me. Your continued support is very much appreciated and as long as you keep coming to the shows then I can keep putting them on.