Oh, what a Carry On

The very first Carry On film I saw at the cinema was Carry On Doctor and from that moment on I was hooked on every Carry On film that ever screened in Penang. That continued until I temporarily moved to Kuala Lumpur in 1973 for my studies. Even then I believe I might have caught one or two Carry On films there as well, but I honestly don't remember much about them now. A lot of those memories came rushing back recently when I received this album, Oh! What a Carry On, from Anwar Fazal.

Come to think of it, the humour in those films reminds me a little of the Bawdy Songs and Backroom Ballads record by Oscar Bran,d which I mentioned a fortnight ago. Brand may not have been British, but many of the songs he collected and recorded came from the same old Anglo folk tradition of cheeky double meanings and playful innuendo, something the Carry On films turned into an art form on the cinema screen.

Oh! What a Carry On is a rather interesting little compilation that was released in June 1971. It brought together novelty songs and pop recordings by several stars from the Carry On movies. What made it unusual was that none of these songs were actually recorded for the films themselves. Most of them were singles released during the 1950s and 60s, later gathered together by the record company to ride on the huge popularity of the Carry On gang.

The LP contains 12 tracks. Side A opened with Be My Girl by Jim Dale, which was a genuine hit in Britain back in 1957, reaching number two on the charts. That was followed by You Need Feet by the towering Bernard Bresslaw. Barbara Windsor contributed On Mother Kelly’s Doorstep, while Frankie Howerd appeared with It’s Alright With Me. The real comic highlight of the side was Kenneth Williams performing as Rambling Syd Rumpo in Green Grow My Nadgers Oh! before the side closed with Spring Song by Joan Sims.

Side B continued the fun with The Ugly Duckling sung by Kenneth Connor. Jim Dale returned again with Piccadilly Line. Dora Bryan offered a cheeky rendition of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend. Frankie Howerd popped up again with Song and Dance Man while Joan Sims sang another number titled Men. The album closed with another Rambling Syd Rumpo performance by Kenneth Williams called The Ballad of the Woggler’s Moulie.

The Rambling Syd Rumpo tracks are probably the most famous items here. The character actually came from the BBC radio programme Round the Horne which ran between 1965 and 1968. The writers came up with a clever trick to get past the BBC censors. They filled the lyrics with nonsense words that sounded extremely rude but technically meant nothing at all. Words like nadgers, moulies and cordwangle had audiences roaring with laughter while the censors could not really object because those words did not exist in any dictionary.

Another fascinating aspect of this album is the early career of Jim Dale. Long before he became a familiar face in the Carry On films, he was actually a teenage pop star produced by George Martin at Parlophone, years before Martin discovered The Beatles. Be My Girl, which appeared on this LP, was one of Dale’s biggest hits. Ironically he never enjoyed the life of a pop idol and preferred comedy, which eventually led him straight into the Carry On series. Much later he reinvented himself again as the narrator of the hugely popular Harry Potter audiobooks, performing more than a hundred different character voices.

Even the sleeve artwork is worth mentioning. The cover illustration was done by Tom Chantrell, the artist responsible for many of the colourful Carry On film posters that once decorated cinema lobbies.

Today, the record feels like a small time capsule from the golden age of British comedy. And for me personally, thanks to Anwar Fazal’s thoughtful gift, it also brings back memories of those days in Penang when a new Carry On film arriving at the cinema was always guaranteed to fill the hall with laughter.