The Complete A–Z of Everything Carry On

COBLEY

Played by Richard Wattis

This bespectacled official reports to the Director of Security Operations in Spying.

COBURN, BRIAN

Roles: Trapper in Cowboy and Highwayman in Dick

Born in Scotland in 1936, Brian Coburn’s hefty frame meant he was instantly recognisable on stage and screen. He worked throughout the world during his career and clocked up over 200 television appearances, his favourite show being BBC’s God’s Wonderful Railway, in which he played the lead.

A steady supply of theatrical and film work came his way: among his credits on the big screen were Octopussy, Trenchcoat, Trial by Combat, Love and Death and Fiddler On the Roof.

Coburn was returning to the Royal Shakespeare Company when illness caused him to cancel the engagement. He died in 1989, aged fifty-three, from a diabetic-related illness.

COCCIUM-IN-CORNOVII

Hengist’s and Horsa’s home town in Cleo.

COCKBURN, PETER

Role: Commentator in Camping

He was also seen as a commentator in 1971 episodes of Paul Temple and On the Buses, while his voice was heard on Marillion’s 1983 album, Script for a Jester’s Tear.

Marian Collins played a bride in two Carry Ons (Cabby)

COCK INN

The inn is mentioned by James Bedsop, the ineffective private investigator hired by Sophie Bliss to spy on Sidney, who, she feels, is seeing women behind her back. In Loving, Sidney was spotted in the establishment’s saloon bar by Bedsop who then followed him back to his office.

CODE CLERK

Played by Gertan Klauber

Seen in Spying the Code Clerk brings a message to the Director of Security Operations (alias The Chief). It’s from Carstairs, the Vienna-based agent, reporting the arrival of Milchmann, a wanted criminal. The Chief questions the validity of appointing foreign subjects in the decoding department.

COE, CAPTAIN

This captain’s epic journey is mentioned by Captain Fearless in Jack. In an open boat, six sailors set out and were at sea for seventy-three days. Only three reached home shores, having survived by eating the three comrades that didn’t make it. Fearless refers to the event when, together with some of his crew, he’s hopelessly lost in a rowing boat, miles from anywhere. The captain isn’t seen in the film.

COLE, PAUL

Role: Atkins in Teacher

As a child actor, Paul Cole appeared in a handful of productions between 1959 and ’63, including, on television, The Four Just Men and The Pursuers, as well as the films Dracula, Next To No Time, Please Turn Over and The Mouse on the Moon.

COLETTE

Played by Suzanna East

Seen in Richmond’s flashback sequence in Emmannuelle in which he describes his most amorous experience. Colette is the niece of the French parson who takes pity on Richmond and provides him with shelter when a German soldier chases him. Colette, though, is the reason Richmond didn’t return to England until eight years after the war ended.

COLIN, SID

Co-wrote the screenplay for Spying

TV: Co-wrote Christmas (70)

Born in London in 1915, screenwriter Sid Colin specialised in comedy for screen and radio, but upon leaving school pursued a musical career. He taught himself the banjo and joined a touring group, playing and singing around the country.

During the war, he served six years in The Squadronnaires, the RAF’s dance orchestra, playing guitar and writing shows, during which time he met Denis Norden and Frank Muir with whom he’d later work on numerous occasions.

After the war, he quit touring and began concentrating on his writing career, but not before he tried making a living as an artist. Colin painted, drew and sculpted all his life and eventually found work designing covers for sheet music. But his future lay in scriptwriting and he soon began writing for radio, film and, later, television.

Among his writing credits for radio are Life With the Lyons, while on television his output includes the series How Do You View?, Before Your Very Eyes, The Army Game and Love Thy Neighbour. His film work included One Good Turn, I Only Arsked!, and the Frankie Howerd films Up the Chastity Belt, Up Pompeii and Up the Front. One of his last screenplays was 1982’s The Boys in Blue. Also a lyricist, he penned songs for films such as Up the Front and Bottoms Up.

He died in 1989, aged seventy-four.

COLLEANO, GARRY

Role: Slim in Cowboy

Other screen credits include a 1960 episode of International Detective and the 1961 film Follow That Man.

COLLINGS, JEANNIE

Role: Private Edwards in England

Born in 1952, Liverpudlian Jeannie Collings started her career as a model for the Moroccan government. After gaining success in this field, she turned her attention to acting. Among her television credits are appearances on The Benny Hill Show, The Generation Game, The Golden Shot, Dixon of Dock Green and Armchair Theatre. In films she’s been seen in Emily, Confessions of a Window Cleaner, Percy’s Progress, I’m Not Feeling Myself Tonight and Cruel Passion.

COLLINS, LAURA

Role: Nurse in Matron

COLLINS, MARIAN

Roles: Bride in Cruising, Bride in Cabby, Girl at Dirty Dick’s in Jack and Amazon Guard in Spying

On screen from the 1950s, Marian Collins was also seen in the television shows Dixon of Dock Green and Frankie Howerd, as well as films such as Behind the Headlines, The Desperate Man, Jungle Street and an uncredited role as Goldfinger’s girlfriend in the Bond movie, Goldfinger.

COLONEL, THE

Played by Wilfrid Hyde-White

From his own private room at the Haven Hospital, the Colonel drives the nurses mad in Nurse with his incessant demands. His good nature, though, is reciprocated and everyone bends over backwards to help, especially Mick, the ward orderly, who’s forever placing bets on the horses for the Colonel. The staff get their own back in the end, courtesy of a strategically placed daffodil!

COMMENTATOR

Played by Peter Cockburn

In Camping he commentates on the film, Nudist Paradise, which is shown at the Picture Playhouse.

COMMISSIONER

Played by Alan Gifford

Based in Washington, the Commissioner works in the Bureau of Internal Affairs. In Cowboy he’s first seen having a little fun with a woman in his office until interrupted by Perkins, his assistant. A former janitor at the law school Judge Burke, of Stodge City, attended, he responds to Burke’s request for a peace marshal but can’t find anyone to fill the position until Marshall P. Knutt walks in looking for a job. Assuming he’s actually a marshal when he’s actually a drainage, sanitation and garbage disposal engineer, he packs him off to Stodge City.

COMPANION

Played by Peter Jesson

One of seven companions originally seen in Cleo.

CONCORDE STEWARD

Played by James Fagan

Gets more than he bargained for when he attends to Emmannuelle ‘Straying Hands’ Prevert, the French Ambassador’s wife, during a London-bound flight on Concorde. Seen in Emmannuelle.

CONNOISSEURS DE LONDRES

The organisation holds a wine-tasting session at the Ruby Room in Regardless.

CONNOISSEUR

Played by David Lodge

Seen in Regardless, the Connoisseur attends the wine-tasting session at the Ruby Room organised for the Connoisseurs de Londres. He helps a drunk Lily Duveen, who was hired from Helping Hands to collect invitations, to her feet when she collapses on the floor, only to be accused of having straying hands.

CONNOR, JEREMY

Roles: Jeremy Bishop in Nurse, Willy in Constable, Footpad in Dick, Student with Ice-cream in Behind and Gunner Hiscocks in England

Son of Kenneth, Jeremy Connor was born in 1955 and made occasional screen appearances as an actor. He now lives in New Zealand.

CONNOR, KENNETH

Roles: Horace Strong in Sergeant, Bernie Bishop in Nurse, Gregory Adams in Teacher, Constable Charlie Constable in Constable, Sam Twist in Regardless, Dr Arthur Binn in Cruising, Ted Watson in Cabby, Hengist Pod in Cleo, Claude Chumley in Up the Jungle, Lord Hampton of Wick in Henry, Mr Tidey in Matron, Stanley Blunt in Abroad, Mayor Frederick Bumble in Girls, Constable in Dick, Major Leep in Behind, Captain S. Melly in England and Leyland in Emmannuelle

TV: Christmas (’70); Christmas (’72); What a Carry On!; Christmas (’73); The Prisoner of Spenda; The Baron Outlook; Orgy and Bess; One in the Eye for Harold; The Nine Old Cobblers; The Case of the Screaming Winkles; The Case of the Coughing Parrot; Under the Round Table; Short Knight, Long Daze; And in My Lady’s Chamber; Who Needs Kitchener? and Lamp Posts of the Empire

STAGE: London! and Laughing

A sublime piece of casting saw Kenneth Connor play Horace Strong, the hypochondriac who’s horrified to be passed fit for national service in Sergeant and set the tone for the diminutive actor’s Carry On career. If ever someone was required to play a dithering, nervous, angst-ridden little man, chances are Connor would be top of the list. He portrayed such characters with aplomb and quickly became an essential part of the gang.

Born in London in 1918, Kenneth Connor made his stage debut at the age of two and by the time he was eleven was performing various acts with his brother in revue shows. Deciding that he wanted to concentrate on becoming a ‘serious’ actor, he attended the Central School of Drama. Upon graduating his first professional job was as Boy David at His Majesty’s Theatre, London, in 1936.

He went on to act in numerous repertory theatres, later becoming a member of the Bristol Old Vic Company; although the outbreak of war in 1939, during which he served with the army’s Middlesex Regiment as a gunner, put a temporary halt to his career, he was for part of the time attached to George Black’s company, Stars in Battledress, touring the Mediterranean.

After demob he returned to acting in a West End play at the Strand Theatre and, before long, a role in the television soap, The Huggetts; but he made his name for the array of character voices he created on radio shows such as Just William and Ray’s A Laugh with Ted Ray, the start of a long and lasting association with the comedian. His success in Ray’s A Laugh saw Ted Ray engage him as his top supporting player in the television series, The Ted Ray Show.

He went on to feature in the 1955 comedy, The Ladykillers, before appearing in the first of many Carry On roles. Other film credits include Poison Pen, The Black Rider, Davy, Make Mine a Million, Watch Your Stern, Nearly A Nasty Accident, Dentist on the Job, What a Carve Up and Rhubarb.

CARRY ON CONSTABLE

An Anglo Amalgamated release

A Peter Rogers production

Based on an idea by Brock Williams

Released as a U certificate in 1960 in black & white Running time: 86 mins

CAST

Sidney James Sergeant Frank WilkinsEric Barker Inspector MillsKenneth Connor Constable Charlie ConstableCharles Hawtrey PC Timothy GorseKenneth Williams PC Stanley BensonLeslie Phillips PC Tom PotterJoan Sims WPC Gloria PassworthyHattie Jacques Sgt Laura MoonCyril Chamberlain ThurstonShirley Eaton Sally BarryJoan Hickson Mrs MayIrene Handl Distraught WomanTerence Longdon Herbert HallFreddie Mills CrookJill Adams WPC HarrisonBrian Oulton Store ManagerVictor Maddern Criminal TypeJoan Young SuspectEsma Cannon Deaf Old LadyHilda Fenemore Agitated WomanNoel Dyson Vague WomanRobin Ray Assistant ManagerMichael Balfour MattDiane Aubrey HonoriaIan Curry EricMary Law 1st Shop AssistantLucy Griffiths Miss HortonPeter Bennett ThiefJack Taylor CliffEric Boon ShortyJanetta Lake Girl with dogDorinda Stevens Young WomanKen Kennedy Wall-eyed ManJeremy Connor WillyTom Gill Frank Forsyth John Antrobus Eric Corrie Anthony Sagar Citizens

PRODUCTION TEAM

Screenplay by Norman Hudis

Music composed and directed by Bruce Montgomery

Art Director: Carmen Dillon

Director of Photography: Ted Scaife

Editor: John Shirley

Production Manager: Frank Bevis

Camera Operator: Alan Hume

Assistant Director: Peter Manley

Sound Editor: Leslie Wiggins

Sound Recordists: Robert T. MacPhee and Bill Daniels

Continuity: Joan Davis

Make-up: George Blackler

Hairdressing: Stella Rivers

Dress Designer: Yvonne Caffin

Set Dressing: Vernon Dixon

Casting Director: Betty White

Producer: Peter Rogers

Director: Gerald Thomas

Sgt. Moon (Hattie Jacques) and Sgt. Wilkins (Sid James) make the perfect partnership

Benson (Kenneth Williams) and Potter (Leslie Phillips) patrol their beat

A flu epidemic sweeps Britain, affecting every industry, including the police force. With constables dropping like flies, raw recruits just out of training school are thrown into the thick of the action, as well as the incorrigible Timothy Gorse, a special constable whose services are only called upon as a last resort.

Before long, the new faces, except for the efficient WPC Passworthy, are causing chaos wherever they tread. After coming to the assistance of a distraught mother who thinks she’s lost her little boy, Gorse decides to play around on the boy’s scooter, only to find himself bumping into PC Benson, who’s out walking Lady, a police dog. As they crash down some steps, the dog runs off.

Benson regards himself as an expert in the physiology of the criminal mind, claiming he can spot a crook a mile off. When a man bumps into him in the street, Benson doesn’t regard the man as anything but a law-abiding member of the public, that is until his trousers fall to the ground because the passer-by has stolen his braces. Another example of his ineptness sees him trying to persuade a supposed car thief from committing a crime, only to discover that embarrassingly he’s accusing a detective sergeant from the CID.

With the threat of suspension hanging over their heads, the new recruits pound their beats in pairs. Potter and Benson spot the getaway car involved in a recent robbery, and identifying a way of redeeming themselves for the earlier fiascos, try and find the robbers themselves. Eventually assisted by Gorse, they manage to catch the crooks in an abandoned house but it’s the lazy, inefficient Inspector Mills who takes all the credit and is transferred to an area college where, ironically, he’ll be in charge of morale and discipline, with Sergeant Wilkins taking over the running of the station after his long-overdue promotion to inspector.

On television, he appeared in, among others, A Show Called Fred, Blackadder the Third, You Rang, M’Lord?, Rentaghost and provided the voices for the popular children’s show, Torchy the Battery Boy. But he’s probably best remembered in this medium for his performances as Monsieur Alfonse, the undertaker, in the sitcom ’Allo, ’Allo! and as Uncle Sammy Morris in the holiday camp sitcom, Hi-de-Hi!.

Awarded an MBE in 1991 for services to showbusiness, Connor was entertaining on BBC’s Noel’s House Party just two days before he died in 1993, aged seventy-five.

CONSTABLE

Played by Billy Cornelius

The police constable appears in Girls alongside the police inspector at the Palace Hotel investigating reports that Patricia Potter, who’s suspected of being a man, is back at the hotel.

CONSTABLE

Played by Kenneth Connor

The Parish Constable in Dick attempts to catch the elusive criminal, Dick Turpin. He’s way past his best-before date, though, and is rather hopeless when it comes to capturing the legendary highwayman.

CONSTABLE, CARRY ON

see feature box here.

CONSTABLE, CONSTABLE CHARLIE

Played by Kenneth Connor

One of the newly-graduated police constables who arrives on the scene in Constable. A nervous, highly superstitious man who can’t even attempt to develop a relationship with WPC Passworthy until he knows whether her birthday lands under the correct planetary sign, such is his reliance on astrology.

CONTE FILLIPO DI PISA

Played by Alan Curtis

Arrives in Henry to talk to Cardinal Wolsey about King Henry’s application for an annulment of his wedding to Queen Marie of Normandy. He’s employed by the Pope and travels as the emissary of the Vatican to explain that the Pope is both outraged and morally shocked but will overlook his concerns in return for 5000 pieces of gold.

CONWAY, BERT

Played by Jimmy Logan

A loud-mouthed Scot who joins the Wundatours party travelling to the Mediterranean resort of Elsbels in Abroad. He jokes to Stuart Farquhar, the courier, about heading off for a dirty weekend, but it’s clear that is what he hopes the trip turns out like, especially when he eyes up Sadie Tomkins from the moment she climbs into the coach, even though he’s competing with Vic Flange for her affections. Makes his living as a bookmaker.

Bert Conway (Jimmy Logan, right) chats up Sadie Tomkins (Barbara Windsor) in the Med (Abroad)

COOK

Played by Anthony Sagar

In Cruising, the Cook is concerned when he realises his boss, Wilfred Haines, is suffering seasickness despite only just leaving port. When Haines makes a hasty dash for the toilets, he pushes into the Cook squashing a creamy dessert all over his face. Seen again, later, being accused by the chef of taking too long cracking open a pile of eggs.

COOK

Played by Mario Fabrizi

A Cook on the Happy Wanderer, he’s seen in Cruising confirming to Wilfred Haines that the ship is actually sailing.

COOK, CORPORAL

Played by Patricia Franklin

In England seen dishing out the so-called food in the NAAFI at the experimental 1313 anti-aircraft battery.

COOKING FAT

In Loving, Jenny Grubb thinks the porter’s unseen black cat is called Cooking Fat in the flats where she lives.

COOKSON

For Cookson, the constable in Girls, see ‘Constable’.

COOLING, MISS

Played by Esma Cannon

The dithering, nervous old lady with a heart of gold tries her best as Bert Handy’s secretary in Regardless. Not the most reliable person in the world, she gets messages confused, which explains why Sam Twist, one of the employees, has a wasted journey to the Forth Bridge, instead of providing a fourth at a game of bridge.

COOMBS, PAT

Roles: Patient in Doctor and New Matron in Again Doctor

Born in London in 1926, Pat Coombs started her working life as a nursery school assistant, trained at LAMDA and began working on stage before establishing herself as a familiar face on television, primarily playing comedy parts or working as a foil for well-known comedians.

Her early credits included Lana Butt in the pilot of Beggar My Neighbour and the three subsequent series transmitted in 1967–68. She also appeared as Violet Robinson in Lollipop Loves Mr Mole in 1971 and the series, Lollipop, the following year. Other series in which she was cast included two runs of Don’t Drink the Water!, four series of You’re Only Young Twice, In Sickness and in Health, Birds of a Feather and EastEnders.

Coombs, who died at Denville Hall, the retirement home for actors, in 2002, made a handful of film appearances in productions such as Adolf Hitler – My Part In His Downfall and Ooh! You Are Awful. In the mid-1990s she was diagnosed with the bone disease osteoporosis but continued working until her final days, recording an episode of the radio series, Like They’ve Never Been Gone, with June Whitfield and Roy Hudd, just months before her death.

COOPER, JUNE

Roles: Girl in Don’t Lose Your Head and Hospitality Girl in Up The Khyber

Other screen credits include playing a stewardess in an episode of 1970’s Mister Jerico.

COOTE, CHARLES

Played by Charles Hawtrey

Chief designer at W.C. Boggs, manufacturers of quality toilet ware, the foppish Charles Coote is seen in At Your Convenience. He lodges with Agatha Spanner, with whom he strikes up a relationship and intends to marry. Agatha’s devotion to Charles rankles with her son, Vic, who happens to be the union representative at the toilet ware company.

COPE, KENNETH

Roles: Vic Spanner in At Your Convenience and Cyril Carter in Matron

Born in Liverpool in 1934, Kenneth Cope is probably best known for his television appearances in shows such as That Was The Week That Was, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Coronation Street and, more recently, Brookside, in which he played Ray Hilton.

Son of an engineer, he trained at Bristol’s Old Vic Theatre School after giving up his job in the drawing office at the Automatic Telephone Company. While at Bristol, he made his screen debut when a production of The Duenna in which he was appearing was recorded.

After graduating, he worked in repertory theatre, initially at Cromer, before moving to London, earning money as a part-time garage attendant in-between acting jobs; eventually television work came his way with early credits being episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood, Ivanhoe and Dixon of Dock Green.

His big break came with the role of Jed Stone in Coronation Street, which led to appearances on That Was The Week That Was. But for many people, he’ll always be remembered as Marty Hopkirk, the helpful ghost in the detective series, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased).

He’s also chalked up a lot of film credits, including X the Unknown, The Yangtse Incident, Dunkirk, Naked Fury, Father Came Too, A Twist of Sand and Juggernaut.