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WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
The workers at W.C. Boggs and Son are striking again and a meeting is arranged with the general secretary of the employees’ union to try and resolve the dispute.
EXT. THE WORKS – DAY
The wheels are at a standstill, the chimney’s dead, and there is no sign of life whatsoever.
EXT. THE WORKS YARD – DAY
A chauffeur-driven car purrs in. It comes to a stop in front of the works entrance. Vic, dressed fairly smartly and carrying papers, gets out and bows and scrapes to a large, stout, well-dressed, well-read, prosperous-looking gentleman getting out of the car. This is Mr Allcock, the general secretary of the union, who looks very sunburnt.
INT. BOGGS’ OFFICE – DAY
The Board Table has been set with paper and pencils, glasses and water jug for a meeting.
Boggs, Lewis and Sid are standing waiting tensely as the door opens and Withering looks in and whispers excitedly.
WITHERING: They’re here, Mr Boggs.
BOGGS: Show them in, please, Miss Withering.
(WITHERING disappears again and LEWIS turns to BOGGS.)
LEWIS: Now remember, Dad, be tough with them. We can’t afford to lose this contract.
BOGGS: Yes, yes, I know, Lewis.
(The door opens again and WITHERING ushers in ALLCOCK and VIC.)
VIC: Mr Boggs – this is our union general secretary, Mr All-cock.
BOGGS: How do you do, Mr Allcock. My son Lewis and Mr Plummer, our works foreman.
ALLCOCK: Pleased to meet you, gents. And sorry if I’m a bit late, but I had another stoppage this morning.
BOGGS: I’m sorry to hear that. You want to try Epsom salts. Marvellous stuff.
(ALLCOCK gives him a strange look.)
ALLCOCK: Work stoppage, I mean.
BOGGS: Oh, I beg your pardon.
ALLCOCK: Yes. Well, shall we get straight down to it then?
LEWIS: Good idea. We’ve already lost four days’ production over this.
ALLCOCK: Now, don’t let’s get off on the wrong foot, young feller. I’ve got a lot on my plate and I had to interrupt what little holiday I get to come ’ere today.
(As they sit …)
LEWIS: I’m sorry.
ALLCOCK: Not that I’m all that worried. Majorca’s a bit boring after the first three weeks or so.
(Confidentially to BOGGS.)
ALLCOCK: I got a deal going on for some building development there, you know.
BOGGS: How nice.
ALLCOCK: Yes. Do you fancy a piece?
BOGGS: (Shocked) I beg your pardon?
ALLCOCK: A plot of land!
BOGGS: Oh. No, I don’t think so, thank you. If we could just get down to business.
ALLCOCK: Yes, all right.
(He takes the open file from VIC and puts it in front of him.)
ALLCOCK: Well, I’ve had the basic facts from Spanner ’ere, and you know what your main trouble is, don’t you?
SID: Yeah. It’s the same old one about who does what job.
ALLCOCK: Ah yes, but the real basic trouble ’ere is – it’s an unofficial strike.
LEWIS: What does that mean, then?
ALLCOCK: It means my ’ands are tied. I can’t do a damn thing. Because it hasn’t got union approval, see?
BOGGS: Well, I’m delighted to hear that, Mr Allcock.
ALLCOCK: So your first step towards getting a settlement is to make it official!
BOGGS: Yes, but … how exactly can we make it an official strike if it hasn’t got union approval?
ALLCOCK: (Chuckles indulgently.) No, no, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr Boggs, you’ve got it arse about face.
(BOGGS reacts coldly to this bit of crudity.)
BOGGS: If you’d care to translate that, Mr Allcock, I don’t understand these technical expressions.
ALLCOCK: What I mean is, the strike hasn’t got our approval simply because it is unofficial.
Make it official and we’ll damn soon approve it, don’t you worry!
LEWIS: All right then, just tell us how we go about making it official?
ALLCOCK: Very simple. We submit all the facts of the dispute to the Union Judiciary Committee. They’ll study them and pass on their recommendations to the Industrial Relations Committee. (Pause.) In due course of course.
LEWIS: How do you mean, in due course?
ALLCOCK: Well, the Union Judiciary Committee are over at a conference in Rio – and you know what that means, eh?
(He chuckles dirtily, nudges old BOGGS, and makes an expressive zig-zag gesture with his hand.)
BOGGS: Quite. Then how soon could we expect action to make it official?
ALLCOCK: Just as soon as the Industrial Relations Committee can study the recommendations and pass their findings on to the Direct Action Committee.
SID: Blimey, you seem to have more committees than the society for unmarried mothers!
ALLCOCK: Well, the Executive have got to have something to do, haven’t they?
LEWIS: (Getting angry.) All right, then what happens after all that, Mr Allcock?
ALLCOCK: I can tell you that all right. It’ll all be chucked right in my lap and I’ll have to hop on another plane back from Majorca, dammit.
BOGGS: Well, pending settlement, Mr Allcock, couldn’t you, as general secretary, recommend a full return to work?
ALLCOCK: Me? Listen, mate, if I was ever to make any clear-cut decision I’d be out on my ruddy arse!
SID: In other words, we can’t win.
BOGGS: Well, there wouldn’t be much point having unions if you could, would there?
(And he laughs jovially.)
BOGGS: This is madness, madness!
BOGGS: (Packing up.) You don’t ’ave to worry, Mr Boggs. Let matters take the normal procedure and I can promise you a quick settlement. With the usual bit of give and take from both sides, of course.
BOGGS: Yes … we give and you take!
ALLCOCK: (Getting up.) Ha ha, that’s very good, I like that. We give and you take. I’m glad you can see the funny side of all this, Mr Boggs. Well, I must be getting along now. Goodbye all, and I must say this meeting has been most useful. Most useful.
BOGGS: Goodbye, Mr Allcock.
(As ALLCOCK and VIC go out.)
SID: Well, all I can say is, whoever named him knew what he was doing!
CARRY ON AGAIN DOCTOR
Alternative titles … Where There’s A Pill There’s A Way, The Bowels Are Ringing, If You Say It’s Your Thermometer I’ll Have To Believe You, But It’s A Funny Place To Put It
A Peter Rogers production
Distributed through Rank Organisation Released as an A certificate in 1969 in colour
Running time: 89 mins
CAST
| Sidney James | Gladstone Screwer |
| Jim Dale | Dr James Nookey |
| Kenneth Williams | Dr Frederick Carver |
| Charles Hawtrey | Dr Ernest Stoppidge |
| Joan Sims | Mrs Ellen Moore |
| Barbara Windsor | Goldie Locks |
| Hattie Jacques | Matron |
| Patsy Rowlands | Miss Fosdick |
| Peter Butterworth | Shuffling Patient |
| Wilfrid Brambell | Mr Pullen |
| Elizabeth Knight | Nurse Willing |
| Peter Gilmore | Henry |
| Alexandra Dane | Stout Woman |
| Pat Coombs | New Matron |
| William Mervyn | Lord Paragon |
| Patricia Hayes | Mrs Beasley |
| Lucy Griffiths | Old Lady in Headphones |
| Harry Locke | Porter |
| Gwendolyn Watts | Night Sister |
| Valerie Leon | Deirdre |
| Frank Singuineau | Porter |
| Valerie Van Ost | Out-Patients Sister |
| Simon Cain | X-Ray Man |
| Elspeth March | Hospital Board Member |
| Valerie Shute | Nurse |
| Shakira Baksh | Scrubba |
| Ann Lancaster | Miss Armitage |
| Georgina Simpson | Men’s Ward Nurse |
| Eric Rogers | Bandleader |
| Donald Bisset | Patient |
| Bob Todd | Pump Patient |
| Heather Emmanuel | Plump Native Girl |
| Yutte Stensgaard | Trolley Nurse |
| George Roderick | Waiter |
| Jenny Counsell | Night Nurse |
| Rupert Evans | Stunt Orderly |
| Billy Cornelius | Patient in Plaster |
| Hugh Futcher | Cab Driver |
| Faith Kent | Berkeley Nursing Home Matron |
PRODUCTION TEAM
Screenplay by Talbot Rothwell
Music composed and conducted by Eric Rogers
Production Manager: Jack Swinburne
Art Director: John Blezard
Editor: Alfred Roome
Director of Photography: Ernest Steward BSC
Camera Operator: James Bawden
Assistant Editor: Jack Gardner
Continuity: Susanna Merry
Make-up: Geoffrey Rodway
Assistant Director: Ivor Powell
Sound Recordists: Bill Daniels and Ken Barker
Hairdresser: Stella Rivers
Costume Designer: Anna Duse
Dubbing Editor: Colin Miller
Producer: Peter Rogers
Director: Gerald Thomas
Applying the final touches to Ernest Stoppidge (Charles Hawtrey)
Down to the bare facts for Barbara Windsor
At the Long Hampton Hospital, Dr Nookey seems to attract trouble, beginning with an incident in the women’s washroom, which he’d mistakenly entered, frightening the highly-strung Miss Armitage out of her senses. Nookey’s carefree manner isn’t to everyone’s liking at the hospital, with Dr Stoppidge wanting Nookey sacked for the washroom incident; there isn’t any love lost between Nookey and Dr Carver either, but Carver ignores Stoppidge’s request for Nookey’s sacking.
Carver, meanwhile, has his sights set on his own private clinic where he can treat affluent private patients, like Ellen Moore, a lonely widow who’s longing for a little romance in her life again; in Carver she sees a man who might provide that, but all he’s interested in is finding a way not to her heart, but her purse; he wants her to turn his dream into reality by financing the Frederick Carver Foundation and tries to woo her, courtesy of a few chat-up lines borrowed from Dr Nookey, at the hospital’s grand buffet and dance. His plans fail dismally.
When she asks Carver to find a replacement for the doctor’s post in a medical mission she established on the far-off Beatific Islands, he thinks it’s impossible to find someone daft enough to work in such an outpost, but then his mind focuses on Dr Nookey. When the young doctor, who has his drinks spiked by Dr Stoppidge, causes more mayhem at the hospital, he faces the hospital’s disciplinary committee. Spotting an opportunity to fill Mrs Moore’s vacancy at her mission, Dr Carver appeases the committee’s concerns over Nookey by offering him a last chance to save his career. Within hours he’s flying off to the Beatific Islands, tiny specks of land battered by rain and hurricanes; he soon realises his life is in the doldrums, that is until he discovers something which will make his fortune in England. Courtesy of an unsuspecting Gladstone Screwer, a serum causing drastic weight loss within days makes Nookey a millionaire when he finally returns to home shores and forms his own private clinic in partnership with none other than Ellen Moore.
Carver, meanwhile, who’d travelled to the islands to check on Dr Nookey, is lucky to escape with his life when the schooner he was travelling in, the Bella Vista, founders off the coast in a terrible storm. He faces more bad luck when he eventually returns home to find his dreams of a private clinic shattered by Nookey. Desperate to find out the constituent parts of the magic weight-losing serum, he hatches a plan to send his colleague, Dr Stoppidge, into the clinic disguised as a woman, but his scheme backfires. Dr Nookey’s good luck is challenged, too, when Gladstone Screwer, realising Nookey is on to a winner exchanging the serum for 200 cigarettes, turns up for a slice of the profits.
A quick chat before the cameras roll
ALLCOCK, SARAH
Played by Joan Sims
Miss Allcock teaches PE at Maudlin Street Secondary Modern School. Seen in Teacher, this judo expert isn’t to be messed around, as Alistair Grigg, the child psychiatrist, discovers. Before the end of term, though, she ends up falling for Grigg.
ALLEN, ANDREA
Role: Minnie in Cowboy
Born in Glasgow in 1946, Andrea Allen made sporadic appearances on the screen during the late 1960s and ’70s, including brief roles in films such as The Wrong Box, For Men Only, She’ll Follow You Anywhere, Invasion: UFO, Vampira and Spanish Fly. On television, she was seen in, among others, Jason King.
Allen, who’s no longer in the profession, lives abroad.
ALLEN, PATRICK
Narrator on Don’t Lose Your Head, Doctor and Up The Khyber
Actor Patrick Allen, born in Malawi in 1927, has one of the most recognisable voices in the business, thanks to years spent narrating films, adverts and documentaries.
After moving to Britain as a child, Allen, who’s also a busy stage actor, was evacuated to Canada during World War Two, and after studying at Montreal’s McGill University worked as a local radio presenter and, subsequently, appeared on television. In 1947 he returned to the UK and was cast in The Survivors, a series of plays for the BBC.
His first film credit, Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder, was the start of a busy big-screen career, which includes The Long Haul, Dunkirk, I Was Monty’s Double, Night of the Big Heat, Diamonds on Wheels, The Wild Geese, Who Dares Wins and, more recently, RPM. On television he’s appeared in numerous shows, including The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Bergerac, The Protectors, The Troubleshooters and The Champions, but his biggest role was playing Richard Crane in the 1960s series, Crane.
ALLISON, BART
Roles: Grandad in Doctor and Grandpa Grubb in Loving
Bart Allison, born in Birmingham in 1892, always wanted to act and spent his early career working in variety and the theatre. He also made occasional screen appearances from the late 1940s, with film credits including The End of the Affair; Smashing Time; Steptoe and Son; No Sex Please, We’re British and The Ritz.
His television work, meanwhile, included appearances in shows such as Dixon of Dock Green, Hadleigh, Angels and The Sweeney.
He died in 1978, aged eighty-six.
AMAZON GUARDS
Played by Audrey Wilson, Vicky Smith, Jane Lumb, Marian Collins, Sally Douglas, Christine Rodgers and Maya Koumani
Clad in black cat-suits, the guards work in S.T.E.N.C.H.’s headquarters and are seen charging around in Spying.
AMBULANCE DRIVER
Played by Brian Osborne
The Ambulance Driver is seen in Matron outside the Finisham Maternity Hospital. An emergency call has been received to go and pick up Jane Darling, a film actress, who’s likely to give birth any minute. A shortage of staff to hand finds Dr Prodd and Nurse Carter – who’s actually Cyril Carter – roped in to help with the job.
AMBULANCE DRIVERS (1st and 2nd)
Played by Anthony Sagar and Fred Griffiths
The ambulance drivers who ferry appendicitis-stricken journalist Ted York to the Haven Hospital in Nurse. As it transpires, their mad dash to the hospital is motivated more by wanting to catch the horse racing than delivering a sick man.
ANAESTHETIST
Played by John Horsley
When Ted York is wheeled in on a trolley ready for his operation in Nurse, the anaethetist is waiting with an enormous hypodermic. (Note: although Horsley’s name appeared in the credits, the scene was cut.)
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN
When Ted York has his operation he drifts off into a dream world.
CLOSE SHOT TED
Flat on his back on moving trolley – but not quite flat out. He’s still resisting the complete surrender of himself. Trolley goes in doors to:
INT. ANAESTHETIC ROOM – DAY
Ted’s wheeled in beside the usual impressive equipment. He does his best to keep his eyes open. Anaesthetist is all ready. He approaches Ted.
ANAESTHETIST: (Friendly, grinning.) You look so wide awake …
(He injects TED, with the enormous hypo.)
ANAESTHETIST: … I doubt if this is going to work …
(TED grins back – an uncontrolled parody of a confident grin.)
TED’S EYELINE
(ANAESTHETIST blurs, spins and disappears.)
RIPPLE DISSOLVE
INT. TED’S MIND. ANAESTHESIA
Evidently Ted’s a good reporter who concentrates on essentials even in his subconscious – for the f.g. of this sequence is all-important and there’s no set worth speaking of, just a dark b.g. Equally evident, Ted is a regular reader of Esquire, for Georgie shimmies on to the screen in idealised, scant and diaphanous harem costume. Music is sinuous in accompaniment. After a self-appreciative wiggle or so on the part of Georgie, a millionaire, young, handsome and in full evening-dress, approaches her, beseechingly offering a diamond necklace, glittering in its velvet-lined case: she repulses him: sadly closing the case, he leaves. A turbaned Maharajah now approaches her, juggling with diamonds as big as potatoes: she scarcely notices the dazzlement thus created: repulses him: tearfully, he departs. A husky sunburnt prospector, magnificent in shorts and sunhat, hauls a small truck to her: it is chockful of diamonds: she hardly looks at the blinding-brilliant display, or at him: his jaw-muscles twitching in manly disappointment, he trudges off, hauling the truck behind him. Holding on to the back of the truck, like a kid scrounging a ride on a water-cart, is Ted, ludicrous in his operating-gown. He jumps off, and, apparently unaware of Georgie’s presence, flexes his muscles in modest self-appreciation. Georgie clasps her hands together in delight and her expression is that of a girl who has at last Mr Right-ed herself. She strolls past him, shedding a veil. Courteously, Ted retrieves it, offers it to her. As she takes it, he kisses her hand. Chews his way, with mounting passion, up her arm. Folds her in an embrace. She’s more than cooperative. Music cuts. A whip-crack O.S. Both turn. Sister’s there, dressed in jodhpurs and roll-neck sweater. She cracks the whip again: Georgie, immediately redressed as a nurse, disentangles herself from Ted. An injections-trolley rolls towards Georgie. She grabs it and trundles it away, super-efficiently. Whip-crack. A bed rolls towards Ted. He scampers into it. Sister nods grimly, folds the whip, goes off eagle-eyed to look for more criminals.
CLOSE SHOT TED (Within dream.)
In bed, lying on his side, one eye open. Whip-crack O.S. He snaps the eye shut.
DISSOLVE
INT. WARD. NIGHT
CLOSE SHOT TED, lying on his back, eyes closed. Real background: the dream is over: he’s about to emerge from the anaesthetic. His eyes flicker.
TED: (Faint) Beer …
(His eyes open.)
TED’S EYELINE
From his corner-bed, a night-view of the ward achieves focus after a shaky start. Six beds on the opposite side of the ward, each containing a slumbering patient. Snores are thunderous in a male ward: they can provide the background for the following.
INT. WARD. NIGHT
Ted resumed.
TED: (Louder) Lager…
He licks his lips.)
TED: (Normal tone) Iced lager … Hey, Ethel! How about some service…?
(He blinks, and licks his lips again.)
TED: (Good and loud) How long’ve I gotta wait for service? I’m a good customer Ethel! Hey – (Loudest) – ETHEL!…
(Frances James, young, slim and attractive night-nurse (qualified) appears at his bedside, a firm and confident ministering angel – to begin with. He turns his head to her. Though he can now talk, he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about yet – or, at least, the normal defences and compromises of ordinary conversation are not in operation. His voice is strident. His ideas are uninhibited and directly expressed throughout.)
TED: ’Bout time … Hey – you’re not Ethel …
FRANCES: Relax now, Mr York.
TED: (Truculent) Where’s Ethel?
FRANCES: Fast asleep I hope – same as you should be.
TED: You know Ethel?
FRANCES: I think I know the one you mean. Barmaid at the Greyhound.
TED: That’s right. Get her.
ANCIENT CARRIER
Played by Ian Wilson
Assists the Carrier in Jack by ferrying Midshipman Poop-Decker to his ship at Plymouth Docks.
ANCIENT GENERAL
Played by Eric Barker
Seen dining at the French Ambassador’s residence in Emmannuelle.
ANGEL, MR (THE BOSUN)
Played by Percy Herbert
The bosun, who’s been at sea fifteen years, works on the frigate Venus. He’s seen in Jack, initially as part of the press gang scouring the streets of Plymouth for two unfortunates to join the ship’s crew.
ANGELINETTA, OLGA
Hairdresser on Teacher and Jack
Olga Angelinetta, daughter of a restaurateur, was born in London in 1902. After achieving her City and Guilds in hairdressing and wig-making, she worked for leading names in the industry until being taken ill in 1943 and spending a year in hospital. Soon after recuperating, she secured a job at Pinewood Studios.
She eventually turned freelance and worked at all the top studios, including Denham and Twickenham. Her list of film credits included The Counterfeit Plan, Make Mine Mink, One Million Years B.C., Our Mother’s House and, her final picture, A Clockwork Orange in 1971.
She retired in the early 1970s and died in 1995, aged ninety-three.
ANGUS
An unseen character in Cruising, Angus was head barman on the Happy Wanderer until he tied the knot and was sworn off booze. Believing a life on the ocean wave wasn’t compatible with marriage, he jacked in his job. The trouble was, he was the only one capable of mixing an Aberdeen Angus, Captain Crowther’s favourite tipple. Eventually, though, he passes on the details to his replacement, Sam Turner, to the relief of the captain.
ANGUS ROBERTSON & COMPANY LIMITED
The estate agent in Cabby who markets the yard and garages Peggy Hawkins rents for her Glamcab taxi company. The office is based at 306 Park Street.
ANTHEA
Played by Amanda Barrie
A posh-speaking Glamcab driver in Cabby. When Ted Watson tries infiltrating the team by posing, disastrously, as a glamour girl, she embarrasses him by asking for help out of her clothes because the staff uniforms are required for washing.
ANTONY, MARK
Played by Sid James
The courageous soldier who claims to be Julius Caesar’s best friend in Cleo. Falls in love with Cleopatra and plots to murder Caesar but his plans are beset with unexpected difficulties.
ANTONY’S DUSKY MAIDEN
Played by Sally Douglas
A dark-haired beauty whom Mark Antony buys from a slave market in Cleo.
ANTROBUS, JOHN
Role: Citizen in Constable. Also credited for writing additional material for the screenplays of Sergeant and Columbus
Son of a sergeant-major in the army, John Antrobus was born in Woolwich Military Hospital in 1933. After leaving school he served two years in the Merchant Navy before, aged nineteen, following his father into the army. He attended Sandhurst Royal Military Academy and was progressing well until his increasing disenchantment at the thought of a military career saw him quit the Forces.
Wanting to be a writer, he was fortunate enough to meet Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, who’d established Associated London Scripts with Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes. They agreed to read some of his work, so by day he earned his living as a waiter, supply teacher and film extra (he was in a crowd scene in 1984 and a non-speaking lab assistant in The Man Who Never Was), while in the evening he completed a script and sent it to the writers.
Before long he was writing with Johnny Speight and supplying material for, among others, Frankie Howerd, Arthur Haynes, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan. He’s also contributed to numerous television shows, including That Was The Week That Was, The Army Game, Bootsie and Snudge, The Dustbinmen and Milligan In …
Antrobus has written for all media, including the screenplays for 1959’s Idle On Parade, starring Anthony Newley, Lionel Jeffries and William Bendix, and, a decade later, The Bed-Sitting Room, with Rita Tushingham and Ralph Richardson. He’s also written extensively for the theatre, such as four plays for the Royal Court Theatre and the jewel in his crown, Crete and Sergeant Pepper.
In recent years, John has teamed up with scriptwriter Ray Galton to pen two series of Room at the Bottom for television and the sanatorium-based sitcom, Get Well Soon. They also wrote the farce, When Did You Last See Your Trousers, which played the Garrick Theatre for a year, and have recently written a stage version of Steptoe and Son which opens at the Theatre Royal, York, in the autumn of 2005.
APHRODISIA
The name of the valley beyond the mountains in Africa where the lubidubies live in Up the Jungle.
ARABIAN OFFICIAL
Played by Steve Plytas
Seen dining at the French Ambassador’s residence in Emmannuelle.
ARCHIMEDES
Played by Michael Ward
Seen in Cleo walking the corridors of Cleopatra’s abode. His official title is Chief Counsellor.
ARISTOCRATIC LADY
Played by Ambrosine Phillpotts
In Cabby, this snooty old girl is seen sitting in the back of a chauffeur-driven car. While waiting at a junction, Charlie Hawkins pulls up and cracks a joke, aimed at the straight-faced chauffeur, about whether he’s going to a funeral, before suggesting that his passenger has got out of the box.
ARMITAGE, MISS
Played by Ann Lancaster
Appears in Again Doctor. Miss Armitage is a patient at the Long Hampton Hospital who’s been admitted for observation. She observes more than she bargained for when Dr Nookey goes into the women’s washroom by mistake and takes a shower. When he later enters her room, believing he’ll find Goldie Locks in bed, it’s the last straw for the eccentric Miss Armitage, who’s liable to suffer the occasional fit.
CARRY ON AT YOUR CONVENIENCE
Alternative titles … Down The Spout, Ladies Please Be Seated, Up The Workers, Labour Relations Are The People Who Come To See You When You’re Having A Baby
A Peter Rogers production
Distributed through Rank Organisation Released as an A certificate in 1971 in colour
Running time: 90 mins
CAST
| Sidney James | Sid Plummer |
| Kenneth Williams | W.C. Boggs |
| Charles Hawtrey | Charles Coote |
| Hattie Jacques | Beattie Plummer |
| Joan Sims | Chloe Moore |
| Bernard Bresslaw | Bernie Hulke |
| Kenneth Cope | Vic Spanner |
| Jacki Piper | Myrtle Plummer |
| Richard O’Callaghan | Lewis Boggs |
| Patsy Rowlands | Hortence Withering |
| Davy Kaye | Benny |
| Bill Maynard | Fred Moore |
| Renée Houston | Agatha Spanner |
| Marianne Stone | Maud |
| Margaret Nolan | Popsy |
| Geoffrey Hughes | Willie |
| Hugh Futcher | Ernie |
| Simon Cain | Barman |
| Amelia Bayntun | Mrs Spragg |
| Leon Greene | Chef |
| Harry Towb | Doctor in Film |
| Shirley Stelfox | Bunny Waitress |
| Peter Burton | Hotel Manager |
| Julian Holloway | Roger |
| Anouska Hempel | New Canteen Girl |
| Jan Rossini | Hoopla Girl |
| Philip Stone | Mr Bulstrode |
PRODUCTION TEAM
Screenplay by Talbot Rothwell
Music composed and conducted by Eric Rogers
Production Manager: Jack Swinburne
Art Director: Lionel Couch
Editor: Alfred Roome
Director of Photography: Ernest Steward BSC
Camera Operator: James Bawden
Make-up: Geoffrey Rodway
Continuity: Rita Davidson
Assistant Director: David Bracknell
Sound Recordists: Danny Daniel and Ken Barker
Hairdresser: Stella Rivers
Costume Designer: Courtenay Elliott
Set Dresser: Peter Howitt
Assistant Art Director: William Alexander
Dubbing Editor: Brian Holland
Titles: G.S.E. Ltd
Processed by Rank Film Laboratories
Toilets by Royal Doulton Sanitary Potteries
Assistant Editor: Jack Gardner
Producer: Peter Rogers
Director: Gerald Thomas
Vic Spanner (Kenneth Cope) gets an ear bashing from his mum (Renée Houston)
W.C. Boggs and Son have manufactured fine toilet ware since 1870, which is surprising considering the constant striking at the factory; Vic Spanner, the union representative, brings the workforce out at the slightest change in day-to-day procedures, such as the scrapping of drinking tea outside official breaks. When Vic broaches the subject with Lewis Boggs, the boss’s son, who’s still green when it comes to dealing with the union, he declines to discuss the matter, resulting in a meeting to consider yet another walk-out. No one, save Vic, is interested, though, until they’re reminded that the local football team are at home that afternoon.
Meanwhile, upstairs, chief designer Charles Coote, managing director William Boggs and others watch with interest as Miss Withering, Mr Boggs’s secretary, tests out a new toilet’s durability. Another topic on the agenda is the making of bidets: while Lewis wants the firm to start manufacturing them to keep up with the times, his father isn’t convinced.
Production at the factory grinds to a halt, though, when the latest strike takes effect. Sid Plummer returns home for the afternoon and is confronted with a pile of dirty dishes and a wife who spends all day chatting to her budgie, while Vic Spanner is berated by his loudmouthed mother, claiming he’s just like his late father; he ends up with a meagre lunch while Charles Coote, who lodges at the house, is dished up his favourite meal. Nothing seems to be going right for Vic when, en route to the football match, he spots Myrtle, the love of his life, getting into Lewis Boggs’s sports car, and in a rush to follow her ends up losing his trousers.
