Carry On at Your Convenience

The 22nd Carry On film produced by Peter Rodgers and Gerald Thomas was inexplicably the first instalment in the series that tanked at the box office. This strange occurrence maybe to do with the fact that this film is literally set in a toilet factory. It follows the Owner and Managing Director of the said sanitary-ware plant W.C Boggs (Kenneth Williams) who wants to introduce a new of line of toilets in order to save his business. However Boggs has two thorns in his side, Vic Spanner (Kenneth Cope), an employee at the factory obsessed with either going on strike, giving over the top union speeches or just causing problems. Then we have Sid Plummer, (Sid James), the manager of the plant, who is supposedly there to help Mr Boggs as his second in command, uniting both senior management and the workers in order to save business.

This is a pretty enjoyable instalment in the series. Even though it does get way too political in parts, especially for a Carry-On film and I can see why no-one saw it when it came out, considering it’s one-sided approach to the working class and trade union members who made up a very large sector of the cinema audience in the 1970’s. Nevertheless a good chunk of this film is classic Carry On. The sort of slapstick over the top style of craziness with a softly raunchy tone that we’re used to linking when we think of the term Carry On. How very convenient indeed !

7/10 – Calum Roberts