What a Carry On!

Catching part of Carry On Henry again the other week set me to thinking as to how you would go about making a Carry On style movie for these modern times. I know they keep on about this proposed new film Carry On London, but from what I've heard about it, it seems like a load of old bollocks - just an excuse to stick a bus-load of second-rate TV actors and comics in a crude knockabout comedy, with no attempt to address contemporary issues. Let's face it, if you were to make a Carry On film which truly reflects contemporary London, it would surely be Carry On Bombing, an everyday tale of suicide bombers and the 'War on Terror' . Moreover, with modern digital technology, surely you could dispense with all those current z-listers and instead resurrect the original Carry On team? If Gene Kelly can return from the grave to breakdance to 'Singing in the Rain' in order to advertise a car, then it should be a doddle to bring back Sid James to leer at women.

The whole thing writes itself, really. Kenneth Williams could be an Osama Bin Laden/Abul Hamza- type spiritual leader - complete with long beard, turban and a hook instead of one hand - sending out his suicide bombers from his secret base underneath Finsbury Park Mosque, in an attempt to bring London to its knees. Opposing him could be Sid James as the metropolitan Police Commissioner - forever taking time out from the 'War on Terror' to sexually harass some WPcs - and Charles Hawtrey as the Homo, sorry Home, Secretary (who's busy using MI5 surveillance teams to voyeuristically spy on toilet cubicles). Add Joan Sims as the commissioner's wife (also the object of Kenneth Williams' Mad Mullah's affections), Barbara Windsor as an undercover policewoman who comically smothers a suspect suicide bomber to death with her ample bosom, only to find he was just an ordinary flasher, Bernard Bresslaw as Williams' manic sidekick and the likes of Peter Butterworth, Jack Douglas and Kenneth Connor as incompetent suicide bombers who keep hilariously blowing up the wrong targets, and the picture is complete. I really thik this one has legs - imagine all the great sight gags you can get from Kennerh Williams nearly poking his eye out, or scratching his arse, with his hook hand.

Indeed, I'm so sure that Carry On Bombing would be a success, that I've even come up with a sequel - Carry On Up The Khyber Again, with Kenneth Williams' Mad Mullah having escaped to Afghanistan and finding himself hunted down by the British Army. Windsor Davies could be brought in as a repressed homosexual sergeant major who is forever comically abusing his privates ("They don't like it up 'em, Captain!", "Please stop buggering the men, Sergeant Major"). I can see it now: Bernard Bresslaw and his Taliban hordes put to terrified flight by the sight of a platoon of Royal Marines wrestling naked in mud, whilst their officers, clad in women's clothing, look on. Still, I do understand if some people find this sort of thing offensive. So, as an alternative, how about an hilarious comedy set in Britain's gay sub-culture - a sort of Carry On Cruising for the twenty first century? Kenneth Williams could be a hugely moustachioed gay porn star who puts his back out whilst having sex with co-star Peter Butterworth in the wheelbarrow position, who goes to a gay health farm to recover. Meanwhile, straight-as-a-dye plumbers Sid James and Bernard Bresslaw take their girlfriends, Barbara Windsor and Joan Sims, on a weekend break to the same health farm, in the mistaken belief that it is a nudist colony. Much hilarity follows as Ken becomes besotted with 'rough trade' Sid, Babs and Joan get involved in some girl-on-girl action in the sauna under the tutelage of Matron Hattie Jacques, whilst Bernie has a sexual awakening when he innocently offers to unblock Dr Charles Hawtrey's U-bend...